An autopsy report has revealed that the suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of an MIT professor died by suicide two days before his body was discovered. Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national, was found dead in a storage locker in Salem, New Hampshire, on Thursday, according to the New Hampshire attorney general's office.
The report estimates that Valente died on 16 December, the same day that MIT nuclear physics professor Nuno Loureiro died at a hospital in Massachusetts. Three days earlier, authorities say Valente was responsible for a shooting at Brown University's Barus & Holley engineering building, which killed two students, Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, and injured nine others.
Investigators linked the two crimes after a Reddit post by a homeless former Brown student named 'John' helped identify Valente as a person of interest. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said the tip led to a car, which led to the suspect's name and photographs matching clothing seen at the scene. Valente was found dead with a satchel containing two firearms and evidence matching the crime scenes.
The suspect had been a doctoral student at Brown and previously studied with Loureiro at Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal between 1995 and 2000. A motive has not been formally established, but a former classmate, Scott Watson, told WCVB5 that Valente was 'bored' and 'hated' his time at Brown, complaining that classes were too easy.
Portugal's foreign minister, Paulo Rangel, expressed shock at the revelations and said the investigation is far from over. In response to the killings, the Trump administration ordered the suspension of the green card lottery program, claiming Valente had used it to enter the US in 2000. However, Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said Valente entered on a student visa and became a permanent resident in 2017.
