Officials say the 48-year-old former graduate student is also suspected in an MIT professor’s killing.
SALEM, NH — The man suspected of opening fire at Brown University last weekend was found dead Thursday inside a rented storage unit, ending a multi-state manhunt that stretched from Rhode Island to New Hampshire, authorities said.
Officials identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national and former Brown graduate student. Investigators said he died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound as teams closed in. Police believe Valente acted alone in the attack that killed two students and wounded nine others on Brown’s campus in Providence on Dec. 13, and in the fatal shooting of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his Brookline, Mass., home two days later. Authorities said they are still investigating a motive and the connections among the locations and victims.
Investigators said the manhunt accelerated this week as tips, license plate reader hits and rental records narrowed the search to southern New Hampshire. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said Valente switched license plates on a rental car to slow police, calling the tactic deliberate. “He knew what he was doing,” Neronha said. Late Thursday, tactical teams and local police converged on a storage facility in Salem. Inside one of the units, officers found Valente deceased with a firearm. The discovery followed days of intensified searches in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, where police tracked movements seen on traffic and commercial cameras after the campus shooting.
Authorities said evidence tied Valente to both crimes, including surveillance video, witness accounts and records from a rental car picked up in the Boston area and later abandoned. U.S. Attorney Leah Foley in Massachusetts said investigators believe the same man was responsible for the Brown attack and for killing Loureiro on Dec. 15, but she cautioned that investigators have not established a clear motive. Officials said Valente and Loureiro had prior academic overlap years ago in Portugal before their separate U.S. careers. Brown administrators said Valente was enrolled at the university more than two decades ago and had no current affiliation. Police said they have not identified any other suspects and do not believe there is an ongoing threat linked to the case.
Students on Brown’s campus described a tense weekend as officers swept academic buildings, set perimeters and processed the physics complex where the attack began. Vigils drew hundreds as names of the two students who died circulated on campus and flags were lowered. At MIT, colleagues remembered Loureiro as a leading figure in plasma science and a generous mentor whose work advanced energy research. University leaders in Providence and Cambridge said counseling resources would remain in place through finals, and that increased patrols would continue on both campuses as a precaution while detectives finish canvassing for additional video and witnesses.
Police laid out a tentative timeline: the Brown shooting on Sat., Dec. 13; the killing in Brookline on Mon., Dec. 15; and the suspect’s body located in Salem on Thu., Dec. 18. Investigators said Valente used a rented vehicle, traveled across multiple jurisdictions and may have changed plates more than once. Detectives credited tips from residents who recognized images released earlier in the week and data from automated license plate readers that flagged the car traveling north. A storage business manager alerted police to irregular activity at a unit rented in recent days, officials said, and officers obtained access before making the discovery.
Prosecutors in Rhode Island and Massachusetts said forensic teams are processing the storage unit, the rented vehicle and several electronic devices for communications, maps or manifests that could explain targeting. As of Thursday night, no charges had been filed posthumously and the case remains an active joint investigation among Providence police, state police in three states and federal agencies. Authorities said they expect to release a more detailed incident timeline and ballistic findings this week. Brown University said it will review campus security practices and building access protocols after investigators complete their work. MIT leaders said they plan a formal remembrance for Loureiro next week, with date and location to be announced.
Outside the Salem facility, cruisers idled as technicians went in and out carrying evidence bags. A small group of neighbors watched from behind yellow tape, trading updates about road closures and school pickups. “You don’t expect a case this big to end a mile from your house,” said Mark Villareal, who lives nearby. In Providence, students placed flowers, class notes and a scarf in school colors on the steps of a science building. “We’re leaning on each other,” said senior Maya Tran, who said her lab partner was among the injured but is expected to recover. In Brookline, a pair of colleagues paused by a growing display of candles, calling Loureiro “a brilliant mind and a kind friend.”
As of late Thursday, police said there was no ongoing search for additional suspects. The medical examiner in New Hampshire will issue a formal ruling on the cause and manner of death. Investigators plan to brief reporters again on Friday with any new findings from the storage unit and vehicle, and with updates on the conditions of the nine people wounded at Brown.
Author note: Last updated December 18, 2025.