The Brown University mass shooting in December and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) murder were carried out by a loner suffering from suicidal thoughts and driven by grievances he collected throughout his life, federal investigators have concluded.
“Investigators found that Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a Portuguese national and legal permanent resident living in Miami, Florida, acting alone, committed the mass shooting at Brown University and the murder of Dr. Loureiro,” the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts announced April 29.
“His actions were determined to have no nexus to terrorism,” the agencies said.
Two people were killed and nine others were injured when Valente opened fire on Dec. 13, 2025, at Brown University in Rhode Island.
The students killed—Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, an aspiring neurosurgeon from Virginia; and Ella Cook, 19, a student leader of the university’s campus Republicans from Alabama—were part of a study group preparing for an economics final when they were shot, according to investigators.
Two days later, Valente shot and killed MIT Professor Dr. Nuno Loureiro, 47, at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, near Boston.
Valente’s deceased body was found in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. He had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to authorities.
Investigators assessed that Valente’s victims were “symbolic in nature,” the FBI reported.
“Brown University as a whole and Dr. Loureiro represented to the shooter his personal failures and injustices he perceived were inflicted by others over time,” the FBI stated in the report. “By attacking them, Neves Valente was likely able to overcome his shame and envy by using violence to punish those communities that he perceived contributed to his downfall.”
Federal investigators detailed an extensive investigation into the killer’s life before the tragic events.
The investigation found Valente, 48, arrived in the United States in August 2000 on a student visa at Brown University after completing a physics program at Instituto Superior Technico in Portugal.
That fall, he enrolled in a doctoral program at Brown University but withdrew from it in May 2001 and left the United States. The FBI did not say why Valente left.
Valente then returned to the United States and obtained lawful permanent residency while living in Miami in 2017, according to the FBI. He then worked briefly as a rideshare driver.
At the time of the shootings, Valente was unemployed and had no criminal record or prior documented contacts with law enforcement.
The FBI recovered two handguns from Valente’s storage unit when they found his body after the shootings. Both were purchased legally from a pawn shop in Florida, according to the FBI. A Glock 34 9mm was purchased in 2020 and used in the Brown University shooting, and a Glock 26 9mm was purchased in 2022, which correlated with the second murder, according to the report.
After the shootings, Valente made a series of audio files and short videos confessing to the crimes, showing no remorse and giving no reason for his actions, the FBI said. In the recordings, he stated he started planning the university shooting in 2022, which is when he acquired the storage unit.
According to investigators, Valente considered, planned, and prepared for the Brown University mass shooting in increments over a period of several years in isolation, spanning multiple geographic locations.
Valente’s transient lifestyle, long-term planning, and social isolation allowed him to go unnoticed by bystanders, investigators found.
“The shooter lacked traditional support, such as family, peers, and authority figures, who would have been able to observe any potential warning signs and contact law enforcement,” the FBI said.
Valente also was driven by an accumulation of grievances through his life. He struggled with how he viewed his life achievements and felt he “was considerably marginalized by others,” the FBI noted.
Valente’s “inflated sense of self contributed to interpersonal conflicts in his life and led him to believe he was being treated unjustly, preventing him from reaching his perceived full potential,” according to the FBI.
The FBI concluded the shooter experienced a failure to thrive, had long-standing suicidal thoughts, and believed he wasn’t where he thought he should be at that stage of his life.
His paranoia increased and that led to him being mentally unwell and committed to dying, the FBI stated.
“However, mental health stressors alone cannot fully explain the attacks that occurred,” the FBI said. “It is important to note that only Neves Valente knows the real reason why he committed these heinous acts.”
The FBI, however, is confident based on the evidence, the shooter’s own writings and recordings, that their conclusions are accurate.
The FBI worked with law enforcement partners across the nation and around the world on the comprehensive investigation that recovered more than 112 pieces of evidence, nearly 500 leads, 11,000 files of surveillance footage, 815 videos, and 1,327 audio files on the shooter’s electronic devices. They also conducted more than 260 interviews, the FBI reported.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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