The public still doesn’t know his full name, but he’s being widely hailed for helping investigators crack two major murder cases: the Brown University mass shooting and the murder of an MIT professor two days later.
“John is nothing less than a hero,” wrote Providence Mayor Brett Smiley in a letter to FBI director Kash Patel. “His bravery, selflessness and stewardship on behalf of his community went far beyond what anyone could hope from a tip.”
“John” is the moniker used in the Providence police affidavit about the case. Beyond that, authorities have protected his identity.
The affidavit describes how John first encountered the suspected gunman in the ground floor bathroom of the Brown engineering building two hours before the shooting.
The man seemed out of place. His clothing “inadequate for the weather,” his jacket and gloves “flimsy,” and pants and shoes straight out of Walmart. And, the witness said, “John described large facemask covering the entire lower part of the Suspect’s face.”
John was suspicious.
He told police the two men “locked eyes” and the suspect fled the building.
John proceeded to follow him on what he described as a “cat and mouse” chase on the streets near the campus.
At one point, John said, he confronted the suspect on George Street.
“Why are you circling the block?” he demanded.
“I don’t know you from nobody,” the suspect replied. “Why are you harassing me?
The chase led to a Nissan Sentra that seemed to belong to the suspect, parked by the Rhode Island Historical Society. John told police there were “fanny pack style bags on the rear floorboard on the passenger’s side.”
The police rechecked the doorbell camera footage they had collected all week.
“We knew he was telling the truth because we could see it on the tape,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said at a news conference Thursday night.
Police were already searching for a gray Nissan because of a Reddit post. An anonymous contributor to the r/Providence subreddit two days after shooting described a vehicle of the same make and model “with Florida plates, possibly a rental.”
John explained that he was the Reddit user who posted that.
Not much has been publicly released about John’s background. Mayor Smiley told CNN that John was a Brown alumnus, class of 2010. Other news organizations have reported he is in vulnerable circumstances. The New York Post went so far as to hail him as “a homeless hero.”
Representatives of various law enforcement agencies agree, that was the crucial break in the case — giving them a vehicle they could track and, ultimately, the identity of their suspect.
“That’s when things really heated up,” said Neronha.
Alamo Car Rental in Boston provided the name on the driver’s license of the man who rented the Nissan: Claudio Manuel Neves Valente.
Police tracked the vehicle across three states, linking it to the Tuesday murder in Brookline, Mass., of MIT physics professor Nuno Lureiro. (They later learned that Lureiro and Valente had overlapped in a university-level science program in their native Portugal.)
Eventually, the manhunt led to a storage unit Valente had rented in Salem, New Hampshire, where he appears to have killed himself.
Asked about the $50,000 reward Thursday, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Boston field office said the witness would likely receive at least part of it.
“I don’t deal typically with the distribution of those rewards,” agent Ted Docks said, “but I mean it would be logical to think that absolutely that individual would be entitled to some of that reward.”
Mayor Smiley’s letter pressed the issue with Docks’ boss, FBI Director Kash Patel.
“Our community is breathing easier today because of the extraordinary assistance John provided to our law enforcement agencies,” Smiley wrote. “I am writing you today to request that the entirety of the $50,000 reward be issued to this incredible Providence neighbor.”
Given the unconfirmed reports of his vulnerable living situation, some of the people commenting on the mayor’s Facebook post about the letter urged Brown University to step up as well.
One commenter wrote: “With an eight billion dollar endowment Brown should house this guy until he can get back on his feet.”
