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The suspect in last weekend’s mass shooting at Brown University previously lived in Miami, according to law enforcement officials.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown University student from Portugal, was found dead late on Thursday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Salem, New Hampshire, storage facility.
Providence, Rhode Island, police chief Oscar L. Perez, Jr. revealed the suspect’s identity and fate during a press conference Thursday evening.
Investigators believe Neves Valente fatally shot two students and wounded nine others in a Brown University lecture hall on Saturday, December 13. Two days later, authorities say, he killed Portuguese Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his Brookline home, roughly 50 miles from Brown’s campus in Providence.
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On Tuesday, Providence police were alerted to a Reddit post on r/providence offering tips about the shooter’s whereabouts:
“I’m being dead serious,” the Reddit user wrote. “The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. That was the car [Neves Valente] was driving.”
The poster also told authorities they’d spotted the suspect.
Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office image
The Reddit tip proved to be a major breakthrough in the case. Using the information, investigators reviewed surveillance footage and traced the Nissan Sentra to Neves Valente. Police learned that Neves Valente had rented the vehicle from an Alamo Rent A Car outlet in downtown Boston using a Florida driver’s license.
On Thursday, police swarmed the Salem storage facility after the Sentra was discovered abandoned nearby. Neves Valente’s body was later found inside the facility, bringing an end to the dayslong manhunt.
Authorities say Brown University shooting suspect Claudio Neves Valente’s last known address was in the Ives Estates neighborhood in north Miami-Dade County
Born in Torres Novas, Santarém, Portugal, Neves Valente was a legal permanent resident of the United States, according to a press release from Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. He arrived in the U.S. in August 2000 as an F-1 student at Brown University and obtained U.S. lawful permanent residency in April 2017.
According to Brown University president Christina Paxson, Neves Valente was enrolled at Brown as a graduate student in physics from the fall of 2000 through the spring of 2002.
Investigators say they’re unaware of him having any prior criminal record in the U.S.
Authorities say Neves Valente last lived in a Miami-area home at 1310 NE 200th St. in the Ives Estates residential neighborhood near Aventura. Miami-Dade property records show the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home has been owned by the same party — not Neves Valente — since 2011 and has a current market value of $423,439.
A Miami Herald reporter who visited the home on Thursday night said the neighborhood was quiet, with nearby homes dark except for holiday lights.
This is a breaking story and will be updated as events warrant.
