Brown University and MIT gunman Claudio Neves Valente had been dead for two days before he was found by law enforcement, his autopsy reveals.
The body of Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was discovered Thursday evening after a six-day manhunt.
Investigators believe he is responsible for fatally shooting two students and wounding nine others at Brown, and then two days later killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F G Loureiro.
New Hampshire Attorney General John M Formella announced Friday that the state’s chief medical examiner confirmed he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, ruled as suicide.
Additionally, the report estimated he died on Tuesday, around two days before he was discovered at a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire.
Neves Valente revisited his former university in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 13 and fired at least 44 rounds from his 9mm pistol, killing two students and injuring another nine.
‘There are some witnesses who said he said nothing. There are some that say he made a barking noise,’ AG Neronha said, adding: ‘Don’t ask me. I don’t know why. And that’s it. There is no other spoken word beyond that, that we are aware of.’
The two Brown students killed during the study session were 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov.
Brown University gunman Claudio Neves Valente was found dead in Salem, New Hampshire
Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a six-day manhunt
Two days later, he travelled 50 miles and fatally shot Dr Loureiro, a father of three, at his home in the Boston suburbs before disappearing.
He was found dead in a storage rental facility in Salem, New Hampshire. He had two firearms on him at the time of his death, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha revealed.
Neronha said Friday that the suspect meticulously planned the attacks and attempted to mislead law enforcement, according to NBC News.
He said the suspect used voice over internet protocol, allowing calls to be made over the internet rather than through cell service, avoided ‘traditional’ credit cards and even changed the license plate on his rental car.
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez told the outlet that the department had to return ‘to the old-fashioned way of policing’ to learn more about the suspect’s cryptic movements.
‘Which was interviewing individuals, reviewing hundreds of videos and footage,’ Perez said.
‘This individual was strategic in every way, using apps to communicate, changing plates on vehicles, covering his face, the clothing that he used, the areas that he drove into,’ he added.
The suspect reportedly used two separate firearms during the attacks, with the ATF now comparing ballistics.
Investigators believe Valente is responsible for fatally shooting two students and wounding nine others at Brown, and then two days later, killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F G Loureiro
Even with him attempting to cover his tracks, the attorney general said authorities tracked him down just a day after his identity became known.
However, law enforcement has come under fire for not identifying and locating Neves Valente quickly enough to prevent Loureiro’s murder, with critics blasting the FBI after a Reddit user ‘cracked the case’ before they did.
The suspect, who studied at Brown 20 years ago, was on the run from the police for days, but his eventual demise came when a Reddit post flagged his suspicious activity outside the Ivy League campus.
Authorities said information came from an internet user who had several strange encounters with Neves Valente on a sidewalk outside Brown University.
Known only as ‘John’ in a Providence police affidavit, the source is being hailed by investigators as the key figure who gave law enforcement the details needed to determine who was behind the Brown shooting, as well as the killing of Loureiro.
As police posted images of a person of interest – now identified as Neves Valente – John began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into ‘possibly a rental’ grey Nissan.
Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he did. The police affidavit said they learned about the tip on December 16, three days after the shooting and a day after the tip line was created.
Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.
Neves Valente (pictured) revisited his former university in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 13 and fired at students, killing two and injuring another nine
A Salem Police Department cruiser drives past the storage facility where the suspect behind the mass shooting at Brown University was found dead
That detail led them to get more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida plates and enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.
The affidavit said John gave investigators additional critical details.
He encountered Neves Valente in the bathroom of the engineering building just hours before the attack, where John noted the suspect’s clothing was ‘inappropriate and inadequate for the weather’.
John also bumped into Neves Valente outside, mere blocks from the building, where he watched him ‘suddenly’ turn around from the Nissan when they made eye contact.
What ensued was then a ‘game of cat and mouse,’ according to John’s testimony, where the two would encounter each other and Neves Valente would run away.
At one point, John says he yelled out, ‘Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?’
‘The Suspect responded, “I don’t know you from nobody,” then Suspect repeatedly asked, “Why are you harassing me?”‘ according to the affidavit.
John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approach the Nissan sedan once more and decided to walk away.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on X that, at Trump’s direction, she is directing US Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the green card lottery program that allowed the suspect into the country from Portugal.
Neves Valente entered the US on an F-1 student visa in 2000 to attend Brown. In 2017, he was granted a ‘diversity immigrant visa,’ designed for nationals of countries with lower US immigration rates, according to USCIS.
According to a Providence police detective’s affidavit, he gained lawful permanent resident status that year.
