Brown University attack suspect died 2 days before his body was found,
autopsy finds
[December 20, 2025]
By KIMBERLEE KRUESI, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, ERIC TUCKER and
HANNAH SCHOENBAUM
An autopsy determined that the man suspected in last weekend's attack at
Brown University and the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology professor days later had been dead for two days when his body
was found, New Hampshire's attorney general's office said Friday
Authorities found Claudio Neves Valente, 48, dead from a self-inflicted
gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility on Thursday night,
said Providence’s police chief, Col. Oscar Perez.
The autopsy determined that Neves Valente, a Portuguese national who had
been living in the U.S., died on Tuesday, the same day that his
countryman, MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro died at a hospital, New
Hampshire Attorney General John Formella's office said in a statement.
It didn't note an exact time of death.
Authorities believe that after killing two students and wounding nine
others last Saturday at Brown, where he was a graduate student studying
physics during the 2000-01 school year, Neves Valente shot Loureiro at
his Boston-area home on Monday night.
Investigators on Friday were still trying to sort out why Neves Valente
allegedly opened fire on the campus decades after he dropped out and
later killed Loureiro, whom he attended school with in Portugal in the
1990s.
Motive is still unclear
The discovery of Neves Valente's body at a New Hampshire storage
facility ended the nearly weeklong hunt for the person who killed two
students and wounded nine others in a Brown lecture hall last Saturday.
Investigators believe the onetime Brown student killed Loureiro in his
home in Brookline, a Boston suburb about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north
of Providence, on Monday. Perez said as far as investigators know, Neves
Valente acted alone.
Portugal’s foreign minister, Paulo Rangel, said Friday that the
government was taken aback by revelations that a Portuguese man is the
main suspect in the mass shooting at Brown and the killing of Loureiro.
Rangel said Portugal has provided “very broad cooperation” in the case.
He said in comments to the national news agency Lusa that “the
investigation is far from over.”
Brown University President Christina Paxson said while Neves Valente is
a former Brown student, “he has no current affiliation with the
university.”
Neves Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program at a
university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, U.S. attorney for
Massachusetts Leah B. Foley said. Loureiro graduated from the physics
program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s premier engineering
school, in 2000, according to his MIT faculty page. That same year,
Neves Valente was let go from his temporary student support and faculty
liaison position at the Lisbon university, according to an archive of a
termination notice from the school’s president at the time.
Neves Valente, who was born in Torres Novas, Portugal, about 75 miles
(121 kilometers) north of Lisbon, had come to Brown on a student visa.
He eventually obtained legal permanent resident status in September
2017, Foley said. It wasn't immediately clear where he was between
taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa
in 2017. His last known residence was in Miami.
After officials revealed the suspect's identity, President Donald Trump
suspended the green card lottery program that allowed Neves Valente to
stay in the United States.
There are still “a lot of unknowns” in regard to motive, Rhode Island
Attorney General Peter Neronha said. “We don’t know why now, why Brown,
why these students and why this classroom,” he said.
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This image provided by Providence Police Dept. shows surveillance
images of Claudio Neves Valente, a suspect in the mass shooting at
Brown University. (Providence Police Dept. via AP)
Tip helps investigators connect the dots
The FBI previously said it knew of no links between the Rhode Island
and Massachusetts shootings.
Police credited a person who had several encounters with Neves
Valente for providing a crucial tip that led authorities to him.
After police shared security video of a person of interest, the
witness — known only as “John” in a Providence police affidavit —
recognized him and posted his suspicions on the social media forum
Reddit. Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he
did.
John said he encountered Neves Valente about two hours before the
attack in a bathroom in the engineering building, where the shooting
occurred, and noticed he was wearing inappropriate clothing for the
weather, according to the affidavit. Still before the attack, he saw
Neves Valente suddenly turn away from a Nissan sedan when he saw
John.
“When you do crack it, you crack it. And that person led us to the
car, which led us to the name,” Neronha said.
His tip pointed investigators to a Nissan Sentra with Florida
plates. That enabled Providence police to tap into a street camera
network operated in the city by surveillance company Flock Safety to
track the vehicle.
After leaving Rhode Island, Providence officials said Neves Valente
stuck a Maine license plate over his rental car’s plate to help
conceal his identity.
Investigators found footage of Neves Valente entering an apartment
building near Loureiro's in a Boston suburb. About an hour later,
Neves Valente was seen entering the Salem, New Hampshire, storage
facility where he was found dead, Foley said. He had with him a
satchel and two firearms, Neronha said.
Victims include renowned physicist, political organizer and
aspiring doctor
Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, joined MIT
in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science
and Fusion Center, one of its largest laboratories. The scientist
from Viseu, Portugal, had been working to explain the physics behind
astronomical phenomena such as solar flares.
The two Brown students killed during a study session for final exams
were 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook, who was vice presdient of the
Brown College Republicans, and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz
Umurzokov, who aspired to be a doctor.
Six of those wounded were in stable condition and three had been
discharged as of Thursday, officials said.
Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the
attack happened in an older part of the engineering building that
has few, if any, cameras. And investigators believe the shooter
entered and left through a door that faces a residential street
bordering campus, which might explain why the cameras Brown does
have didn’t capture footage of the person.
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Associated Press reporters Barry Hatton and Helena Alves in Lisbon,
Portugal, Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Audrey McAvoy
in Honolulu, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Matt O'Brien in Providence
contributed.
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