Authorities say the same suspect was responsible for Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University and the Monday night murder of an MIT professor in Brookline, Mass.
At a news conference Thursday night in Providence, that city’s police chief Col. Oscar Perez identified the Brown suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente.
Valente was found dead in New Hampshire Thursday night, with authorities saying he took his own life.
At a separate news conference in Boston, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley said Valente, a Portuguese national and U.S. permanent resident, is also believed to be the gunman who killed MIT physicist Nuno F.G. Loureiro.
“He was the person responsible not only for the Brown shootings, but for the Brookline shooting,” said Foley, who also said Neves and Loureiro may have known each other when they were students in Portugal more than 20 years ago.
“Previously, [Valente] attended the same academic program as the MIT professor [Loureiro] in Portugal between 1995 and 2000,” said Foley.
“The information that I know — and again, the investigations are going to continue, to be able to provide you with all the answers that you are asking [for] — is that there was no doubt that [Loureiro] was the intended target,” she told the press.
Ted Docks, the Special Agent in Charge of Boston’s FBI field office, told the press in Providence that a search warrant was executed Thursday night at a storage facility in Salem, N.H., just over the Massachusetts border where Valente was found dead. Also at the scene was a rental car that investigators had connected to Valente.
His body was found with material connecting him to the Brown shooting.
“He was found dead with a satchel with two firearms and evidence in the car that matches exactly what we see at the scene here in Providence,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Valente had been a student at the school from 2000 to 2001, taking graduate classes in physics.
Despite new connections coming to light, it’s still not clear why Valente targeted Brown University or Loureiro.
“We are still investigating the motive in this case,” said Foley.
This is a developing story.
