Solving two major New England crimes in one fell swoop, police said that the same gunman who opened fire Saturday at Brown University, killing two students, murdered an M.I.T. professor two days later.
And, they said, the suspect was found dead in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire.
“Tonight our Providence neighbors can begin to breathe a little easier,” Mayor Brett Smiley said late Thursday night, announcing the news alongside local, state and federal law enforcement officials who worked together in an intensive five day dragnet.
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old native of Portugal “and a Brown student.”
Brown President Christina Paxson said the man was enrolled in a Master of Science PhD program studying physics at Brown from Fall 2000 to Spring 2001. He had no recent connection to the Brown campus, Paxson said.
At a separate news conference on Thursday evening in Boston, Leah Foley, the U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts, said authorities believe Valente drove to Brookline, Mass., after the shooting at Brown and killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in his home. She said the two had studied in the same academic program in Portugal from 1995 to 2000.
Valente’s last known address was in Miami, Fla., Perez said. Authorities said he died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A cooperator ‘blew the case right open’
On Monday, state and federal authorities in Rhode Island released images of a “person of interest” in connection with the Brown shooting. The images were taken from doorbell cameras and parked Teslas in the streets near the crime scene.
The footage showed a heavyset man wearing a Covid mask and a hat, but his eyes were visible. He wore a pouch over one shoulder and, at times, appeared to walk with a distinctive gait.
Some of those images were taken hours before the shooting, according to police, leading authorities to believe he had been planning his crime.
On Wednesday, police released images of a person they were seeking for questioning. Authorities made it clear he was not a suspect.
Soon after, that person contacted police in Providence, according to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. Speaking with investigators, Neronha said, the witness “blew the case right open.”
The lead that ultimately unlocked the mystery: a rental car that authorities were able to trace and connect to a photo that matched the description of their suspect as well as his real name.
Eventually, they tracked the suspect to Salem, N.H., where an FBI SWAT team found him dead inside a storage unit, FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge Ted Docks said.
He was found dead with two firearms, Neronha said, and the same satchel police saw in the footage they collected in Providence.
But the officials said there is still no sense of what motivated the shooting Saturday afternoon.
“In terms of why Brown, that remains a mystery,” Neronha said.
A study session interrupted by shooting
The manhunt launched by hundreds of law enforcement personnel that ultimately stretched at least through Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, began Saturday afternoon after a single shooter killed 2 people and wounded 9 others inside Brown University’s Barus & Holley Hall. He then escaped onto Hope Street. Students and neighbors near the campus were told to shelter in place with the shooter at large.
At an early morning press conference the following day, Smiley and other officials announced that a “person of interest” had been taken into custody. The shelter-in-place order was lifted, and the city began the process of mourning and trying to heal.
But late that night, Smiley acknowledged at a second press conference that authorities had the wrong person in custody and “we have no way of knowing” whether the person who fired the shots was still in the Providence area.
Attorney General Neronha added, “We have a murderer out there, frankly.”
Brown cancelled most final exams and the campus quickly emptied out.
The East side of Providence was still reeling nearly a week after the shooting.
There were plenty of vacant parking spaces on streets where metered spaces are normally hard to find.
There was also a growing pile of flowers at Brown University’s Van Wickle Gates, as students and neighbors stopped by to quietly pay their respects.
Placed near the center of this impromptu memorial were drawings and photos of the two students killed Saturday, 19 year old Ella Cook and 18 year old Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov.
The Barus & Holley engineering building, where the shooting took place, remains roped off with yellow crime scene tape. On Thursday, small groups of students were allowed inside to collect belongings they left Saturday in the mad scramble to flee the gunfire.
Hailey Chen, a second-year medical student, said she left behind her keys and her wallet, leaving her unable to drive her car and unable to board a flight home to California even after Brown canceled her exams.
At Rhode Island Hospital, three of the nine injured have been released. Six more remained hospitalized in stable condition on Thursday.
One of the injured has been identified as freshman Matthew Wang, who sustained two gunshot wounds, “one to his lung and another to his lower body,” according to a GoFundMe page set up to help his family with medical expenses.
“The road ahead will be long, with many weeks and months of both mental and physical rehab,” the page explains.
Brown University President Christian Paxson echoed that sentiment at the Thursday night press conference announcing the death of the suspect in the shooting.
“Nothing can really fully bring closure to the lives that have been shattered over the past week,” Paxson said, “but this may allow our community to move forward and begin a path of repair and recovery and healing.”
Ocean State Media’s Paul Singer contributed to this story.
