Brown Shooting Suspect Died 2 Days Before Body Was Found: Autopsy

An autopsy concluded that the suspect in the Brown University shooting and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor had been dead for two days by the time authorities discovered his body, New Hampshire officials said on Friday.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese citizen living in the United States, was found deceased Thursday evening in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire.

The autopsy determined he died Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella’s office. The exact time of death was not released.

Investigators say Valente carried out the Dec. 13 attack at Brown, where he fatally shot two students and injured nine others during an economics exam review in an engineering building lecture hall.

In addition, he is suspected to have shot Nuno Loureiro, a 47-year-old MIT physics professor, at his Brookline, Massachusetts, home on Dec. 15. Loureiro succumbed to his injuries the following day.

Valente, who briefly studied physics as a graduate student at Brown in 2000 and 2001, had no present-day connections to the university, according to President Christina Paxson.

“He has no current affiliation with the university,” she said.

Valente and Loureiro attended the same physics program at Portugal’s Instituto Superior Técnico from 1995 to 2000, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley noted. Loureiro graduated that year, while Valente was dismissed from a temporary student support role at the Lisbon institution, per archived records.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel was shocked that Loureiro’s killer was also Portuguese.

“The government was taken aback by revelations that a Portuguese man is the main suspect in the mass shooting at Brown and the killing of Loureiro,” he told Portugal’s Lusa News Agency, noting that the country has offered “very broad cooperation” and that “the investigation is far from over.”

Police in Portugal were alerted by U.S. authorities Thursday after Valente had been identified.

A tip from a witness, called “John” in court documents, broke the case open. After viewing security footage released by authorities, John recognized Valente from run-ins hours before the shooting, including in a campus bathroom. John posted suspicions on the social media website Reddit, leading to an FBI report.

“When you do crack it, you crack it. And that person led us to the car, which led us to the name,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.

The tip led investigators to trace a Florida-plated Nissan Sentra via Providence’s license plate recognition cameras. Valente allegedly switched plates with a Maine tag post-shooting to avoid detection. He later appeared in footage taken near Loureiro’s residence and entering the New Hampshire storage facility with a bag and firearms.

Authorities are unaware of the motive.

“We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom,” Neronha said. “There are still a lot of unknowns.”

Victims included Loureiro, a fusion scientist who led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center since last year. In Portugal, colleague Bruno Gonçalves mourned the loss.

“It is difficult to imagine in what context someone would want to harm someone that works in this field,” Gonçalves said, noting “all the contributions he gave and what he could still have given, all the equations left unwritten.”

At Brown, 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an Uzbekistan immigrant from Virginia, and 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook, an Alabama native and vice president of the Brown College Republicans, both lost their lives.

College Republicans President Martin Bertao remembered Cook: “Ella was known for her bold, brave, and kind heart as she served her chapter and her fellow classmates. Our prayers are with her family, our Brown CR’s, and the entirety of the campus as they heal from this tragedy.”

Valente entered the country on a student visa, gaining permanent residency in 2017 via the diversity visa lottery. Following his identification, President Donald Trump ended the program.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem explained it “enabled the suspect in the Brown University shooting to enter the country.”

Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said Valente acted alone. The FBI initially did not connect the two incidents but later found them to be related.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.