What we know about Brown University and Massachusetts shootings

The suspect ‍in ​a mass shooting at Brown University on 13 December has been found dead after a six-day manhunt that spanned multiple states.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, is also believed to have fatally shot a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor two days after the shooting at Brown.

Many questions about both incidents remain – including over the suspect’s motive and why the hunt for him took so long.

Police say a key lead came from a Reddit user who initially posted online urging them to look up the suspect’s car.

Here is what we do – and do not – know about the two shootings, the victims, and Valente himself.

The university attacker opened fire in a classroom at around 16:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on 13 December. The incident took place in the Barus and Holley engineering building, where final exams were taking place at the time, the university said.

Two people were killed and nine were injured during the incident at Brown, which is in the city of Providence, Rhode Island.

An economics professor told local media that the shooting had taken place during a review session for her course, which was led by her teaching assistant.

“He said that the shooter came in the doors, yelled something – he couldn’t remember what he yelled – and started shooting,” Rachel Friedberg said.

“Students started to scramble to try to get away from the shooter, trying to get lower down in the stadium seating, and people got shot,” she added.

Investigators are not yet sure how the suspect gained access to the classroom.

No suspect was immediately taken into custody, and a days-long manhunt ensued, as authorities released images of a person of interest. At one point, police briefly detained and then released a different person of interest.

Mukhammad Aziz Umurzakov, 18, and Ella Cook, 19, were identified as the two students who were killed at the prestigious Ivy League institution.

Ms Cook was described by the New York Times as an accomplished pianist and a standout student who spent her summers as an employee at a local ice cream shop.

Martin Bertao, president of the College Republicans of America, said in a statement that the group was “devastated”. She was vice-president of the school’s Republican student organisation.

Mr Umurzokov was remembered as a gifted student and promising scholar.

Speaking to the Washington Post, his sister Rukhsora Umurzokova said the young man took every advanced placement class he could while in high school, and worked over the summer at a local convenience store to buy himself a laptop.

The second attack took place on 15 December, in Brookline, Massachusetts – two days after the incident at Brown and dozens of miles away.

A university academic was again the victim, but it was not until days later that officials said they believed the same attacker was involved.

Officers responded to a call about gunshots at an apartment at about 20:30 local time. Officials said Nuno Loureiro, 47, a nuclear science and engineering professor from Portugal, was shot multiple times in his home. He died the following morning in hospital.

CBS News, the BBC’s US media partner, reported that a neighbour said he heard “three loud bangs” in the evening and thought somebody in the apartment building was kicking in a door.

Loureiro joined MIT’s faculty in 2016 and was named director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2024.

The theoretical physicist and fusion scientist was known for his award-winning research in magnetised plasma dynamics. The head of the physics department said Loureiro’s research was “a particularly exciting new scientific direction”.

Authorities have faced questions over why the search took so long but stressed they were working as quickly as they could.

On 18 December, authorities said they had a suspect and announced that he had been found dead in a storage facility at a third location in Salem, New Hampshire.

They identified him as Claudio Neves Valente, 48, another Portuguese national who studied at the university in Providence, Rhode Island, about 25 years ago.

A police affidavit suggested that they had received an important lead after a post on Reddit was drawn to their attention. The post was written by a person who urged police to look into a grey car with Florida number plates.

When contacted and interviewed by police, that person described encountering the suspect near the scene of the shooting on the day of the attack. The tip “blew this case right open”, said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.

Neronha said Valente was found dead with a satchel and two firearms. Initial findings suggest that he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

It was at that point that the authorities publicly linked the two incidents. Evidence in a car nearby was matched to the scene at Brown. And the same car was spotted near the scene of the professor’s shooting in Massachusetts.

Authorities have not provided a motive for either attack.

Valente did study at Brown from the autumn of 2000 to the following spring, when he was studying for a PhD in physics, the university’s president said, but he had “no current active affiliation” to the institution.

Police said there was a connection between Valente and Loureiro, the victim of the second shooting. They said the pair had studied at the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s.

The university has said all remaining exams, papers and projects would not take place as scheduled.

In the aftermath of events at Brown, US President Donald Trump described the shooting as “a terrible thing”. He later questioned why the suspect had not been better recorded in security footage.

By its own count, the university has 1,200 cameras, but it told a local affiliate of CBS that they did not extend to every area of the campus.

After the suspect in both shootings, Valente, was identified later in the week, Trump suspended the US green card lottery scheme via which Valente is believed to have entered the US in 2017.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she had paused the visa scheme to “ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme”.

Additional reporting by Pratiksha Ghildial