The suspect in the shooting Saturday at Brown University that killed two students and injured nine was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit, authorities announced Thursday night.
The same man also is believed to have fatally shot MIT physics professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Mass., on Monday, said Leah Foley, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, took his own life, according to authorities. His body was discovered Thursday evening with firearms next to him, in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, law enforcement officials said.
Valente was a former Brown student and a Portuguese national, who was last known to live in Miami, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said at a news conference.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Valente attended the Ivy League school from 2000 to 2001 and studied physics. Authorities say Valente also attended the same school in Portugal as Loureiro.
Police said their case cracked open Wednesday night after a tip led them to a car linked to the suspect. That brought them to a Massachusetts car rental company that had images of him, and paperwork with his real name.
The news that police had caught up with the shooter came as a relief to many on campus and in the surrounding Providence community, who endured five days of fear and uncertainty as the investigation foundered with few leads.
"Tonight our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier," said Providence Mayor Brett Smiley.
The day of the shooting, authorities released the first images from area surveillance cameras of a man who they believed to be connected to the shooting, offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to his identification and arrest.
Law enforcement officials on Sunday initially focused on a different "person of interest" but cleared and released him later that night. Investigators continued to scour the area for clues, forming lines and sweeping aside freshly fallen snow with their feet as they searched neighboring streets.
Additional video images and maps were released this week, showing the suspect walking the area near campus hours before and after the shooting.
The shooting took place about 4 p.m. Saturday at Barus and Holley Hall in a stadium-style seating classroom where students were gathered for an economics class review session ahead of final exams. The building houses the university's school of engineering and physics department. Paxson said Valente would have spent a good amount of his time in the building while he was a student.
Students described hearing gunshots just before seeing a man in a face mask burst into the classroom and start firing.
Brown students Ella Cook, 19, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, were killed.
Cook, from Birmingham, Ala., was vice president of Brown's college Republican club, and according to her obituary, had "a heart as big as the sun" and "evinced a sort of 'silent leadership,' to quote her brother Hooker." She was known for "her persistent courage in following both heart and conscience" as well as her wide array of interests. She loved spending time with friends, babysitting, teaching Bible classes and pursuing her studies at Brown, where she was majoring in French and Mathematics-Economics.
Cook was remembered at the Cathedral Church of the Advent, as "an incredible, grounded, faithful, bright light," both at home and at Brown.
Alabama Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth posted on X that Cook "represented the very best of Alabama. A bright future was ended much too soon."
Umurzokov, a naturalized citizen, immigrated to the United States in 2011 from Uzbekistan. The U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan said it was mourning "the loss of a "bright future."
Freshman Shane Toomey said Umurzokov wanted to be a neurosurgeon, and loved learning so much he was at that economics review session just hoping to learn something new - he wasn't even enrolled in the class.
"He could hold a conversation with anybody about just about anything and then pivot to something entirely different," Toomey told Ocean State Media. Umurzokov, he added, seemed "to be friends with every single person you walk by on a campus of thousands of people."
Loureiro, 47, was a Professor in MIT's departments of Physics and Nuclear Science and Engineering, as well as the director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. A colleague called him "a star in his field."
Since joining MIT in 2016, Loureiro "helped illuminate the physics occurring at the center of fusion vacuum chambers and at the edges of the universe," according to an article on the MIT website. Born and raised in a small city in central Portugal, he "knew he wanted to be a scientist, even in the early years of primary school when 'everyone else wanted to be a policeman or a fireman,'" he told MIT News for a profile in 2018. He studied in Lisbon before earning his doctorate in London, according to MIT.
MIT president Sally Kornbluth said in a statement that Loureiro "was known as an imaginative scholar, gifted administrator and enthusiastic mentor," as well as for his character and passion. When he was chosen to lead MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Loureiro said "fusion energy will change the court of human history" and that it was "both humbling and exciting to play a key role in enabling that change."
His predecessor in that role called Loureiro's loss "immeasurable."
"He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner," said MIT professor Dennis Whyte.
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