Man suspected in Brown U shooting, MIT professor’s killing found dead

Claudio Neves Valente a former Brown student and Portuguese national, has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A man, who is suspected of killing two and wounding several others in a Brown University mass shooting in the US state of Rhode Island, and of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, has been found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility where he had rented a unit, officials said.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Colonel Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said at a news conference.

Perez said as far as investigators know, the suspect acted alone. Investigators believe Neves Valente is responsible for both the shooting at Brown and the killing of an MIT professor who was fatally shot in his home Monday, the US attorney for Massachusetts, Leah B Foley, said.

Two people were killed and nine were wounded in the mass shooting on Saturday at Brown University.

The investigation had dramatically shifted Thursday when authorities said they were looking into a connection between the Brown mass shooting and an attack two days later near Boston that killed 47-year-old MIT professor Nuno FG Loureiro.

Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001. “He has no current affiliation with the university,” she said. Neves Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic programme at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, Foley said.

The FBI previously said it knew of no links between the two shootings.

A second individual who was identified in proximity to the suspect came forward after Wednesday’s news conference and helped “blow the lid” off the case, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.

Foley said investigators identified the vehicle Neves Valente rented in Boston and drove in Rhode Island. That vehicle was seen outside of Brown University.

Foley said after leaving Rhode Island for Massachusetts, the suspect attached a Maine number plate over the rental car’s plate to help conceal his identity.

Video footage showed Neves Valente entering an apartment building near Loureiro’s. About an hour later, he was seen entering the storage facility where he was found dead, Foley said.

There are still “a lot of unknowns” regarding motive, Neronha said. “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom,” he said.