Police identified the suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, who was a former student at Brown University.
The suspect in two fatal shootings, including an attack at Brown University and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, was found dead Thursday, officials announced.
At a news conference Thursday evening, Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, identified the suspect as Claudio Neves Valente, who was a former student at Brown.
“He was a 48-year-old man. He was a Brown student. He was a Portuguese national, and his last known address was in Miami, Florida. And I will tell you that he took his own life tonight,” Perez said.
The man appears to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Perez said. He was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility.
Perez spoke about how the suspect had been identified after a different person of interest who had been taken into custody was released after further investigation earlier this week.
“It was all about groundwork, public assistance, interviews of individuals, and good old-fashioned policing,” Perez said.“We looked at financial records, we looked at video footage.”
He said that in this case, the crucial tip came from a video, which Perez said “provided us with a description of a vehicle.”
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said that the breakthrough in the case came from an individual in proximity to the suspect who helped identify the vehicle and “blow the lid” off the case.
“When you crack it, you crack it. That person led us to the car, led us to the name,” Neronha said.
The Dec. 13 shooting at Brown University left two dead and nine injured. It occurred in the afternoon during final exams at the university’s engineering building.
The two students fatally wounded in the attack include Ella Cook, vice president of the College Republicans at Brown and a native of Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an Uzbek national.
Neronha said that the motives for the Brown shooting are still unclear.
“We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom,” he said.
In addition, investigators now suspect Valente in connection with the shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in his Brookline home on Dec. 15.
The FBI had previously found no connection between the two.
Loureiro, 47, was a theoretical physicist and fusion scientist from Portugal.
The two are believed to have attended the same university in Portugal, according to officials.
Brown University officials have emphasized that Valente had no current association with the school, despite having previously attended.
According to Brown University President Christina Paxson, Valente had been enrolled at the school several decades ago for a short time, attending from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001.
“He has no current affiliation with the university,” Paxson said.
The investigation into the shooting drew local frustration in Providence after investigators failed to quickly apprehend the suspect, drawing the investigation into a days-long manhunt.
Authorities, during the days-long manhunt, also released a person of interest.
The university has suspended the regular schedule for end-of-term exams and other final assessments in the wake of the tragedy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Joseph Lord
