A 48-year-old former Brown graduate student shot two students in a Providence lecture hall, then killed a MIT professor and later took his own life, authorities say.
The Brown Shooting
On a Saturday last week, a gunman entered a lecture hall at Brown University in Providence and fired at a group of students. Nine people were wounded, and the shooter, identified as Claudio Neves Valente, was later found dead. The attack sparked an immediate investigation that linked the suspect to a subsequent murder.
The Aftermath: Neves Valente’s Death
Authorities concluded that Neves Valente was found dead Thursday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a storage facility in New Hampshire. The search that began with the Brown shooting ended when his body was discovered. An autopsy determined that he died on Tuesday.
The Murder of MIT Professor
On Monday, two days after the Brown incident, Neves Valente shot Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a 47-year-old professor who leads the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The shooting occurred at Loureiro’s home in the Boston suburbs, roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Providence. The professor was killed in his own residence.
The Perpetrator’s Background
Claudio Neves Valente was born in Torres Novas, Portugal, about 75 miles (121 kilometers) north of Lisbon. In high school, he placed third in a national physics competition in 1994, according to a Portuguese physics magazine. Five of the top finishers, including Valente, competed internationally in Australia the following year.
From 1995 to 2000, he studied physics in Lisbon alongside Loureiro, federal prosecutor Leah B. Foley said. Loureiro graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico in 2000, while Valente was let go from a position at the same university that year. Valente entered Brown as a graduate student on a student visa that fall. Brown President Christina Paxson said he took a leave in 2001 and formally withdrew effective July 31, 2003.
Around that time, Valente posted on the Brown physics website that he was back home in Portugal and had dropped out of the program permanently, according to a webpage saved by the Internet Archive. He added in Portuguese: “And the moral of the story is: The best liar is the one who manages to deceive himself. These exist everywhere, but at times they proliferate in more unexpected places.”
During his brief time at Brown, he enrolled only in physics classes. Paxson said it is likely that he would have taken courses and spent time at the building where the shooting occurred because that’s where the vast majority of physics courses take place. Paxson added that Brown found no indication of any public safety interactions or other concerns while Valente was a student.
The Victim’s Career
Nuno Loureiro is a former physics student from Viseu, Portugal, who joined MIT in 2016. He was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, one of its largest laboratories. Loureiro has worked to explain the physics behind astronomical phenomena such as solar flares.
Witnesses and Quotes
Brown classmate and Syracuse University professor Scott Watson recalled that Valente was essentially his only friend in the graduate program. Watson said, “He would say the classes were too easy – honestly, for him they were. He already knew most of the material and was genuinely impressive.” Watson also noted that he never saw or heard from Valente again after the former left.
A neighbor, Edward Pol, a race car mechanic who lives across the street from the home where Valente rented a room, said he had seen Valente several times, most recently two or three months ago. Pol recognized the suspect when he saw his pictures on the news Friday morning.
An intercom answered by a homeowner at the Miami house said he was the homeowner but declined to identify himself or make any comment. Some neighbors who talked with the Associated Press on Friday said they had never seen Valente. No police were in sight.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said, “There are still ‘a lot of unknowns’ in regard to motive. We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom.” The government of Portugal was taken aback by the revelation that a Portuguese man is the main suspect.
The Mystery of Valente’s Life
Before his death, Valente was renting a room in a working-class neighborhood north of Miami. The yellow house with a red roof is in a working-class area that features large houses. What he was doing for a job was unclear; a witness to the Brown shooting noted he was wearing pants and shoes typical of restaurant workers.
In September 2017, Valente obtained legal permanent residence status in the U.S., Foley said. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from Brown in 2001 and receiving the visa in 2017.
Key Takeaways
- Claudio Neves Valente, a former Brown graduate student, shot two students in Providence and later killed MIT professor Nuno Loureiro.
- Valente was found dead Thursday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility.
- No motive has been identified, and authorities are still investigating the link between the two incidents.
The shootings at Brown and the subsequent murder of an MIT professor have left the academic community stunned. With no motive revealed, the investigations continue to seek answers to why a former physics student would commit such violent acts and why he chose these specific victims.
Closing
The tragic events at Brown University and MIT underscore the need for ongoing vigilance and support within academic institutions. As authorities work to piece together the timeline and motivations, the communities of Providence and Cambridge remain in mourning and in search of understanding.
