Photo: BING GUAN / AFP / Getty Images
The suspect in the Brown University shooting was found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, on Thursday (December 18). Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and a former graduate student at the university. He is believed to have acted alone.
According to law enforcement officials, Valente is believed to have killed two students and injured nine others during a shooting inside a classroom at Brown University on Saturday (December 13). He has also been linked to the murder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno Loureiro, who was shot in his Brookline home on Monday (December 15).
Authorities located an abandoned car in Salem, which they suspected was used by Valente to evade capture. This discovery led police to a storage facility where he was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters that investigators found two firearms and evidence linking him to the crime scene.
The investigation into the connection between the Brown University shooting and the MIT professor's murder is ongoing. Officials said that Valente and Loureiro went to school together in Portugal 25 years ago.
Authorities in Providence said that the officials leading the investigation in Massachusetts will provide more details about the connection between the two cases.
The shooting at Brown University resulted in the deaths of two students, Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a freshman from Virginia.
Mayor Brett Smiley acknowledged the fear and uncertainty among residents during the five-day search for the suspect.
“Tonight, our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” Mayor Brett Smiley said. “I want to thank the people of Providence for stepping up and coming together during an extraordinarily difficult time."
“I know this has been hard on all of us. Over the past five days, minutes have felt like hours," he added.