ARITCLE UPDATE – 12/22/25:
More information about the suspect in the Brown University and MIT professor shootings has been released as authorities work to determine a motive.
Law enforcement officials say the suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, made multiple trips to Providence and Boston prior to the deadly attacks that claimed the lives of Brown students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and MIT professor Nuno Loureiro.
According to a charging document, during two separate periods in late November, Neves Valente rented a hotel room in Boston. From Dec. 1 until at least Dec. 12, license plate readers captured the vehicle he rented — a gray Nissan Sentra with a Florida license plate — about a mile from the Brown campus.
CCTV images on the morning of Dec. 12 also captured an individual in the area of Brown “consistent with images” of the suspect that were taken from surveillance video at the Boston business where he rented the car. The mass shooting at Brown happened the following day.
Then, on or about Dec. 14, Google email and voice accounts associated with Neves Valente “logged in from Internet Protocol addresses in the vicinity of Boston University,” which was approximately a half mile from Loureiro’s home, which is where he was killed the following day.
Brown, MIT Shooting Suspect Was ‘Brilliant,’ Prone to Anger, Former Classmates Say
Several of Neves Valente’s former classmates have opened up about their time spent with him in school. Dr. Bruno Nobre, who graduated from Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico alongside Neves Valente and Loureiro, said Neves Valente was “brilliant” and top of his graduating class in the school’s physics engineering program.
Scott Watson, a professor of physics at Syracuse University and former classmate of Neves Valente at Brown, said in an email to ABC News that Neves Valente would become frustrated with what he believed was a lack of academic rigor in Brown’s physics program.
“He would say the classes were too easy — honestly, for him they were,” Watson said. “He already knew most of the material and was genuinely impressive.”
Watson also said his frustration with his courses and his professors sometimes reached the level of anger.
Brown Shooting Suspect Opened Fire from Back of Classroom
Charging documents also reveal that the shooter opened fire from the back of a classroom.
Students were in Tanner Auditorium, a lecture hall in the Barus and Holley building, for a two-hour economics exam review session when they heard gunshots coming from the top, or rear, of the room, CBS reports.
Witnesses said the shooter entered from the back of the auditorium and walked down it as he fired across and toward the front of the space.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE – 12/19/25:
The relentless pursuit for the suspect in the deadly December 13 mass shooting at Brown University, concluded Thursday evening in a New Hampshire storage facility. Authorities found Claudio Neves Valente, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, marking the end of a harrowing chapter that also implicated him in the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
The 48-year-old suspected gunman is believed to have acted alone in the shootings that left two students dead and nine wounded in a lecture hall at Brown University, followed by the killing of Portuguese MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his Brookline, Massachusetts residence.
Brown University and MIT Shooting Suspect Background
Brown University President Christina Paxson confirmed Valente’s brief academic tenure at the institution, noting his enrollment as a graduate physics student from fall 2000 to spring 2001, reports the Associated Press. While a student, the suspect only took physics classes, the majority of which were held in the Barus and Holley building… the same building where the mass shooting occurred, reports the Providence Journal.
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Despite his lack of current affiliation with Brown University, Valente’s time at a Portuguese university overlapped with Loureiro’s in the nineties. Loureiro, a distinguished MIT faculty member, graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in 2000, the same year Valente, who was working as a teaching assistant at IST, faced professional termination from the school.
The timeline of Valente’s life presents gaps, notably between his 2003 formal withdrawal from Brown and his 2017 acquisition of legal permanent U.S. residence status. His last known home address was in Miami, and he appears to have no recorded criminal history in the U.S. until this week’s shootings.
Witnesses Provide Crucial Evidence in the Investigation
The investigation into the shootings gained momentum through digital clues and vigilant eyewitnesses, reports the Providence Journal. A pivotal break occurred on December 16 when a Reddit post mentioned a suspicious grey Nissan with Florida plates near the Rhode Island Historical Society. The author, identified only as “John,” recounted an unsettling encounter with Valente at Brown’s Barus and Holley building on December 13.
The Rhode Island Attorney General’s affidavit also unveiled a custodian’s account of a suspicious figure matching Valente’s description, seen on multiple occasions near the crime scene before the mass shooting at Brown. Surveillance footage corroborated these observations, capturing the suspect’s presence on December 1.
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Further evidence emerged from a Brown faculty member who reported seeing a grey sedan with a Florida license plate driving unusually slowly on December 11, aiding in tracing Valente’s movements through license plate reading cameras from Flock Safety.
Implications and Unanswered Questions
With Valente’s death, authorities face unresolved questions about his activities between his departure from Brown and recent events. U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley highlighted the complexities of tracking Valente, including his use of a Google phone and possibly European SIM cards, alongside an unregistered Maine license plate, reports the Providence Journal.
Brown University is also reviewing how Valente was able to access the building where he carried out the shooting, reports ABC News. Paxson said the building was not locked on the day of the attack due to there being exams. She said the school will review its security measures.
