The man accused of fatally shooting two Brown University students and wounding nine others during a classroom attack, as well as killing an MIT professor two days later, was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility, authorities said late Thursday.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown graduate student, died in an unoccupied unit at the Salem site, next to one he had rented in November. Investigators recovered a satchel, two firearms, and other items linking him to the December 13 Brown incident, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.
Neves Valente had no known U.S. criminal record, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley noted. He became a lawful permanent resident in 2017 through the diversity visa lottery and most recently listed a Miami address. In response, Secretary Kristi Noem announced the U.S. would pause the program.
The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.
In 2017, President Trump…
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) December 19, 2025
The Brown victims were identified as students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov.
On December 15, Neves Valente allegedly murdered Nuno F.G. Loureiro at the professor’s Brookline home. The two had overlapped in a physics program at Portugal’s Instituto Superior Técnico from 1995 to 2000, with Neves Valente serving as a teaching assistant until his contract ended in February 2000. There is no evidence of later contact. Foley said the two men are believed to have known each other.
A law enforcement official told CNN that investigators believe the killing of the professor was targeted. Still, they do not believe the two students killed at Brown University were direct targets of the shooter.
Neves Valente enrolled in Brown’s physics PhD program on an F1 visa starting September 1, 2000, took a leave in April 2001, and withdrew in 2003, university President Christina Paxson said. He would have spent significant time in the Barus & Holley building, the site of the shooting, for classes requiring specialized equipment.
“During his time at Brown, Neves Valente was enrolled only in physics classes. The majority of physics classes at Brown have always been held within the Barus & Holley classrooms and labs,” Paxson said, per CNN. “We can say that physics classes typically require access to specialized equipment, including demonstration carts that are a fixed asset in some of Barus & Holley classrooms. So I think it’s safe to assume that this man, when he was a student, spent a great deal of time in that building for classes and other activities as a PhD student in physics.”
Dressed in black, the gunman entered a Tanner auditorium during final exams. He fired a 9mm weapon, leaving 44 spent shell casings, one unfired cartridge, projectiles, and two high-capacity magazines of about 30 rounds each. Fifteen casings were in a hallway, 29 in the auditorium.
A tipster proved pivotal after officials released a photo of a person of interest.
“He blew this case right open. He blew it open,” Neronha said. “That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, that matched the satchel.”
Neves Valente, described as skilled at concealing his trail with an untraceable phone and no personal credit cards, rented a Boston hotel room from November 26 to 30, and rented a gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates on December 1. The car appeared near Brown multiple times between December 1 and December 12.
“Investigators identified the vehicle that he had rented in Boston and then drove to Rhode Island,” Foley said, per NBC. “The vehicle was seen outside of Brown, and there was security footage that showed a person who resembled him.”
After the Brown attack, he returned to Massachusetts, swapped the plates for an unregistered Maine one, then shot Loureiro.
“There was security footage that captured him within a half-mile of the professor’s residence in Brookline,” Foley said, NBC reported. “And there is video footage of him entering an apartment building in the location of the professor’s apartment, and then later that evening, he is seen about an hour later entering the storage unit wearing the same clothes that he had been seen wearing right after the murder.”
Financial records tied him to the vehicle and lodgings. A campus custodian’s observations and an anonymous Reddit post aided the probe, per an affidavit.
Federal officials confirmed Neves Valente’s death ended any public threat.
“Tonight, our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” said Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, per NBC.
“I’m grateful for the heroic efforts of law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions to locate the suspect, including the Massachusetts State Police, whose work and shared evidence were instrumental,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. “While we try to make sense of this senseless violence, we mourn the loss of Professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, Ella Cook, and Mukhammed Aziz Umurzokov, and our hearts are with the MIT and Brown communities.
“I want the people of Massachusetts to know that law enforcement across all levels of government is working together to learn more about what happened and keep our communities safe.”
