The suspect in the Brown University shooting and the murder of an MIT professor who drew a horde of law enforcement agencies to a Salem, New Hampshire storage facility was found dead Thursday night.
Officials identified the suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente during a news conference on Thursday night.
Valente was originally from Portugal but had legal permanent residency in the United States and was a former student at Brown University, Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said. Valente had allegedly been living in Miami.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said that Valente was found dead inside with two firearms and was wearing the same clothes as pictured when police distributed images of a person of interest in the investigation.
Valente is suspected of opening fire on a study session inside a classroom of the school of engineering’s Barus and Holley Building around 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. Two students were killed and nine others were injured.
The US Attorney’s Office of Massachusetts announced that Valente is also suspected of killing Nuno Loureiro, who was gunned down inside his Brookline home on Monday.
Police sources told Boston 25 News on Thursday that they are investigating possible ties between Saturday’s shooting at Brown University and Monday’s deadly shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor in Brookline.
Police were originally drawn to the Salem, New Hampshire, storage facility on Thursday due to a car of the same make and model that was seen near the Brown University shooting and the murder of Nuno Loureiro.
Neronha detailed that a person who was in close proximity to Valente around the time of the shooting came forward and provided invaluable information regarding the car Valente used, which they tracked to a Massachusetts rental facility.
Investigators then obtained the rental agreement Valente used to get the car.
Brown President Christina Paxson said that Valente was a PHD student in physics at Brown and spent lots of time as a student in the building back in 2001.
Officials also detailed that Valente and Loureiro, the murdered MIT professor, apparently attended university together in Portugal.
Law enforcement just confirmed for me The MIT professor who was shot and killed went to the same school in Portugal as the shooter.
— Ted Daniel (@TedDanielnews) December 19, 2025
The U.S. attorney for Massachusetts said that surveillance video at the apartment complex where Loureiro was shot on Monday linked the Brown University shooting to that crime.
Investigators identified the vehicle that Valente rented, drove to Brown, and then drove back to Boston.
Security footage then captured him within a half-mile of the professor’s residence in Brookline.
The attack on Brown University’s campus triggered hours of chaos across campus and surrounding Providence neighborhoods as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter and urged students and staff to shelter in place.
Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old freshman from Uzbekistan, were killed when a man walked inside the engineering building and opened fire.
Law enforcement officials in Providence have spent the past several days asking residents to scour their personal security cameras for any hint of a person of interest in the shooting.
Police and federal agents carrying weapons and wearing tactical gear were seen entering and exiting the facility for several hours.
Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/7QOJU3BNCJERBNKJC5LWTBYFLU.png)
