Suspect in Brown University shooting found dead after being linked to second crime
Phoebe Tonks
Featured Image Credit: Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
The suspect believed to be behind the deadly shooting at Brown University has been found dead, authorities confirmed on Thursday.
Two students were tragically killed, and at least nine others were injured during the shooting inside a classroom at the Ivy League university on Saturday (13 December).
An investigation had been underway, complete with a manhunt to try and track down the suspect, but at a news conference on Thursday evening (18 December), police told reporters that the suspect had been found dead.
He is a 48-year-old Portuguese man called Claudio Manuel Nueves Valente whose last known address was in Miami, Florida, Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said.
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Nueves Valente was found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, after suffering from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"He may have been dead for a bit of time," said one senior official.
Nueves Valente was a former PhD student in physics at Brown from 2000 until the spring of 2001, when he took a leave of absence.
He later formally withdrew from the University completely in 2003, according to Brown University president Christina Paxson.
According to Rhode Island’s Attorney General Peter Neronha, the suspect was found 'with a satchel, with two firearms and evidence in the car that matches exactly what we see at the scene here in Providence'.
The discovery came after a member of the public tipped off police, with the information provided proving crucial to tracking down Nueves Valente.
"He blew this case right open. He blew it open," Mr Neronha said.
"That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, that matched the satchel."
Earlier on Thursday, authorities had revealed they were also investigating a potential link between the Brown shooting and the assassination of a physics professor at MIT.
Professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, was gunned down at his home two days after the Brown shooting incident.
Federal officials confirmed the link between the two cases in the news conference, as they announced the death of the ‘Brown University and MIT professor shooter’.
They also confirmed that there was ‘no longer a threat to the public’.