What led to a former PhD physics student at Brown University targeting his former school in a mass shooting along with fellow Portuguese national, MIT professor shot dead at MIT? How Claudio Manuel Neves Valente became exposed as authorities yet to figure out motive for killings.
Brown University gunman Claudio Manuel Neves Valente a 48 year old Portuguese national staked out the Ivy League School for several weeks before he carried out his deadly attack, leaving two students dead and another 12 injured.
A custodian had spotted a ‘suspicious person’ — later confirmed to be the shooter — lurking around the school’s Barus and Holley engineering building on both Nov. 28 and Dec. 1, according to a 35-page affidavit.
Brown University gunman aka ex Brown physics Ph.d student
The custodian told investigators he encountered the man, who was wearing a surgical mask and was walking with a limp, during his shifts between 3 p.m. and sunset, the filing cited by the Providence Journal reported.
Then, two weeks later, surveillance footage captured the same person circling the building just hours before he went inside and opened fire.
Detectives later reviewed university surveillance footage from Dec. 1 and found a figure consistent with the general description of the suspect.
The custodian’s sighting came before a homeless man — only identified as John — posting on a Reddit board to say he, too, had seen the suspect acting suspiciously in areas surrounding the school prior to last weekend’s bloodshed.
‘I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental,’ the Reddit user posted, according to an affidavit filed by the police in Providence, R.I.
Connecting the dots back to ex physics Ph.d student at Brown
John would later directly approach police and inform them of his sightings leading to authorities linking a car, a phone, images and an Alamo car rental agreement to that of the gunman.
During a Thursday press conference, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said Neves Valente was a former Brown student doing his Ph.D. in physics, from 2000 before withdrawing in 2003, with a last known address of Miami, Florida.
Neves Valente was born in Torres Novas, Santarem, Portugal and was a legal permanent resident of the United States, according to a press release from Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. He arrived in the United States in August 2000 as an F-1 student at Brown University and subsequently obtained U.S. lawful permanent residency in April 2017.
As far as investigators know, Neves Valente did not have any prior criminal record in the United States.
Neronha said that Neves Valente was enrolled in a doctoral program at Brown but subsequently withdrew from the university. Brown University President Christina Paxson said that he was enrolled from fall 2000 to spring 2001 and took a leave of absence in April 2001, and formally left the university in July 2003. He had no active affiliation with Brown, she said.
Why did former Ph.D student go on killing spree?
U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah B. Foley confirmed Dec. 18 that Neves Valente is also believed to be responsible for the slaying of Nuno Loureiro, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Of note, Neves Valente attended the same academic program as the professor in Portugal, between 1995 and 2000, CNN reported.
At some point after the shooting at Brown, the plates on the suspect’s rental car were changed from Florida to Maine, Ms. Foley added.
Attorney General Peter Neronha said at the time of his ‘suicide death’ at storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, Neves Valente was found with a satchel and two firearms on his body, plus evidence in the car ‘that matches exactly what we see at the scene here in Providence.’
Authorities had yet to say what had motivated the gunman to target his former school along with shooting dead the preeminent MIT physics professor.
