The search for the suspect in the recent tragic events at Brown University came to a somber conclusion as authorities found Claudio Neves Valente dead in a New Hampshire storage facility. It was revealed that Neves Valente, a former Brown student from Portugal, was not only suspected of the mass shooting at the university but also of the murder of an MIT professor.
Neves Valente, 48, was discovered on Thursday night, having taken his own life. Investigators believe he was responsible for the shooting at Brown University where two students lost their lives and several others were injured. Two days later, Neves Valente allegedly killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in the Boston suburbs. Authorities stated that, based on current information, Neves Valente acted alone in these incidents.
Brown University President Christina Paxson disclosed that Neves Valente had been a graduate physics student at the university from 2000 to 2001 but was no longer affiliated with the institution. It was revealed that both Neves Valente and Loureiro had attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.
Neves Valente, who had come to Brown on a student visa, was granted legal permanent residence status in 2017. Following the identification of the suspect, President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program which had facilitated Neves Valente’s stay in the US.
There are still many unanswered questions regarding the motive behind these tragic events, with Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha stating that significant unknowns remain about why these specific individuals were targeted.
The FBI initially found no connections between the Rhode Island and Massachusetts incidents, but a crucial tip from an individual who had encountered Neves Valente helped authorities track him down. The tip led investigators to a storage facility in New Hampshire where Neves Valente was found dead.
Among the victims were MIT physicist Nuno F.G. Loureiro, Brown University students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov. Loureiro, a renowned fusion scientist, had been working on explaining astronomical phenomena. Cook was known for her involvement in her church and Umurzokov had dreams of becoming a doctor.
