Sole suspect in Brown, MIT shootings found dead

Police gather outside storage unit with suspected Brown University gunman was found dead

Police gather outside storage unit where Claudio Neves Valente was found dead

(Image credit: Reba Saldanha / AP Photo)

What happened

A 48-year-old man believed to have murdered an MIT professor and two Brown University students earlier this week was found dead Thursday in a New Hampshire storage unit, law enforcement officials said Thursday night. The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, was a physics grad student at Brown in 2000 and 2001 after attending the same academic program as the slain MIT professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, in their native Portugal, officials said. Valente, a permanent U.S. resident since 2017, died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Who said what

In the timeline outlined last night by police and prosecutors in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Valente killed Brown students MukhammadAziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, and shot nine others, during an economics study session on Saturday. He subsequently drove his rental car to Boston and shot Loureiro at his Brookline home on Monday, then drove to the storage unit he rented in Salem, New Hampshire. Loureiro, head of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, died early Tuesday.

“In most mass shootings in the United States, suspects are either killed or captured quickly,” The Washington Post said. In the Brown case, “frustration grew after police briefly detained” the wrong man on Sunday, and daily news conferences grew “more contentious” as police appeared stumped. Ted Docks, the lead FBI agent in Boston, initially said there seemed to be “no connection” between the MIT and Brown shootings.

The alleged killer’s identity was unknown until Wednesday, when a witness in Providence helped “blow the lid” off the case, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said last night. “That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of the person renting the car.” He said authorities are still searching for a motive but “are 100% confident that this is our target and that this case is closed from a perspective of pursuing people involved.”

What next?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday night that, at President Donald Trump’s request, she had ordered a pause of the DV1 diversity lottery program that Valente used to enter the U.S. “Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery,” The Associated Press said, and this “latest example” of him “using tragedy” to “limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration” is “almost certain to invite legal challenges,” as the lottery was created by Congress.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.