A suspect in a mass shooting at Brown University and in the killing of an MIT professor has been found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit, authorities said.
Five days ago, a gunman opened fire in a first-floor classroom where students were cramming for an exam inside the Brown University engineering building in Providence, Rhode Island. The attack killed two people and injured nine others. Two days later, the same man allegedly shot professor Nuno Loureiro, the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, in his home in Brookline, Mass.
On Thursday night, Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown student. He was previously enrolled at the school between 2000 and 2001 and was a former member of the physics graduate program.
“He has no current affiliation with the university,” Brown University President Christina Paxson said.
Neves Valente was found dead with a satchel and two firearms, according to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. Evidence in the suspect’s car also matched evidence found at the scene in Providence.
Authorities credited a second person who had come in contact with Neves Valente with helping to lead them to his rental car, assistance that proved to be an important key in the case. Officials said they used video footage and the rental car agreement to identify and track Neves Valente.
Leah Foley, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, also noted that video footage captured someone resembling Neves Valente at Brown University as well as in Brookline, near Loureiro’s home.
According to Foley, Neves Valente and Loureiro, who was a member of the MIT physics department, previously attended the same academic program in Portugal and knew each other. She said they didn’t currently have any information to suggest that Neves Valente knew any of the victims in the Brown shooting.
Investigation of the motive behind both attacks is ongoing, officials said.
“We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom,” Neronha said.