A frantic search for the suspect in last weekend’s mass shooting at Brown University concluded Thursday when authorities discovered him dead inside a storage facility in New Hampshire. Officials later revealed that he was also suspected of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor. Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Col. Oscar Perez, Providence police chief.

Investigators believe Neves Valente fatally shot two students and injured nine others in a Brown University lecture hall last Saturday. Two days later, he allegedly killed MIT professor Nuno F. G. Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, roughly 80 kilometers from Providence. Perez stated that, as far as investigators know, Neves Valente acted alone. Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente had been enrolled as a graduate physics student from fall 2000 to spring 2001 but had no current affiliation with the university.

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley said Neves Valente and Loureiro had attended the same academic program in Portugal from 1995 to 2000. Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico in 2000. That same year, Neves Valente was dismissed from a position at the Lisbon university, according to an archived termination notice.

Neves Valente initially studied at Brown on a student visa and later obtained legal permanent residency in September 2017. His whereabouts between leaving Brown in 2001 and obtaining the visa in 2017 remain unclear, with his last known residence being Miami. Following the revelation of his identity, President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program that had enabled him to stay in the U.S.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said many questions remain regarding motive, including why Neves Valente targeted Brown University, the students, and that particular classroom. Police credited a tip from someone who had multiple encounters with Neves Valente as critical in locating him. The tip identified a Nissan sedan with Florida plates, which enabled Providence police to use over 70 street cameras operated by Flock Safety to track the vehicle. Neves Valente later placed a Maine license plate over the rental car’s plates to conceal his identity.

Video footage showed Neves Valente entering an apartment building near Loureiro’s home before later arriving at a Salem, New Hampshire storage facility, where he was found dead with a satchel and two firearms. Loureiro had joined MIT in 2016 and last year became head of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, focusing on explaining phenomena such as solar flares. The FBI stated it found no link between the two shootings. Despite Brown University having around 1,200 cameras, the attack occurred in an older part of the engineering building with few cameras. Investigators believe the shooter entered and exited via a door facing a residential street, explaining why campus cameras did not capture him.

Experts note that in targeted mass attacks, suspects often commit suicide, are killed, or are arrested. Previous incidents, such as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the 2023 Lewiston, Maine shooting, illustrate that capturing suspects can take days. Similarly, other high-profile cases show varied timelines for suspect apprehension or self-inflicted deaths.