Events leading to the killings of Brown University students and MIT professor spanned decades
By Andy Rose, CNN
(CNN) — The discovery of the body of Claudio Neves Valente in a New Hampshire storage facility Thursday night capped days of terror following two deadly shootings on two separate major university campuses.
But the story, investigators say, began decades earlier.
Here is a timeline of the 48-year-old suspected gunman’s movements from when he first may have encountered one of the victims, according to prosecutors:
1995: Suspect and victim attended same academic program
Neves Valente was in the same physics program as one of his alleged victims, Nuno Loureiro, starting in 1995 in their native Portugal, US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley said in a news conference late Thursday.
It is not clear if or how they may have interacted over the next five years or if they were in touch afterward.
Neves Valente was a teaching assistant at Instituto Superior Técnico until his contract ended in 2000, the same year Loureiro graduated with his physics degree. It is not clear why the contract ended.
2000: Suspect came to US for brief studies at Brown
Neves Valente began studying in 2000 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, according to Foley.
He likely took physics classes in the Barus & Holley building, Brown President Christina Paxson said in a statement Thursday to students and faculty.
Neves Valente was on an F-1 visa, but his studies at Brown ended after less than a full year. This is a non-immigrant visa for international students to study full time.
2017: Suspect admitted to US under diversity visa lottery
Neves Valente reentered the US in 2017 via the diversity visa program, where a specified number of applicants from designated countries are admitted through a lottery system, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
There were about 6,000 Portuguese diversity visa applications that year, with 36 accepted, State Department records show. The diversity lottery program is being suspended in response to the killings, Noem said.
Neves Valente got permanent legal US residency, also known as a green card, and, at some point later, a Florida driver’s license.
November 2025: Suspect’s first recorded activity in New England
More than two decades after first entering the US and with no known US criminal record, Neves Valente rented a storage unit at Extra Space Storage in Salem, New Hampshire, according to federal prosecutors.
He frequently used credit cards under a false name, according to the prosecutor, along with a cell phone with service designed to be difficult to tie to a physical location.
“He was sophisticated in hiding his tracks,” said Foley.
December 1: Suspect rented a car in Boston
Neves Valente picked up a vehicle at a car rental office in Boston on December 1, Foley said, citing a screen grab of the video, which authorities released of the suspect later in the investigation.
The same day the gray Nissan Sentra was rented, it was first seen in surveillance video on the Brown campus, about 40 miles away.
The sedan would continue to be seen intermittently on campus over the next 11 days, Foley said.
December 13: Suspect shot 11 students on Brown’s campus, authorities say
Neves Valente walked around the area of the Barus & Holley building – where he likely took classes 25 years earlier – for about six hours during the day, surveillance video showed.
The suspect interacted with someone around 2:15 p.m., one video showed. The person – identified in a police affidavit as John – followed Neves Valente because of his suspicious behavior. The suspect accused John of “harassing” him, then disappeared, the document says.
About two hours later, Neves Valente went into a Barus & Holley auditorium and opened fire, killing students Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, investigators said. Nine others were wounded.
A total of 44 spent 9 mm casings were found in the building, Providence Police investigators said in an affidavit, along with two high-capacity magazines.
There was no known connection between Neves Valente and the students, officials said.
“We’re still investigating the motive in this case … because, like I said, he was very careful in his communications,” Foley said Thursday.
December 14: Suspect returned to Massachusetts and switched license plates
Within a day of the shooting in Rhode Island, Neves Valente returned to Massachusetts, investigators said. To obscure his movements, he replaced his rental car’s tag with a license plate from Maine.
“We haven’t figured out now where he got that plate from,” said Foley. “We have information that that plate was a very old plate that had been taken out of registration status over a decade ago.”
“He knew what he was doing. He was changing plates. That’s why the collective work of following and finding this car made it more difficult,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.
December 15: Suspect killed MIT professor near Boston, officials say
Neves Valente shot and killed Loureiro, 47, investigators said; the suspect’s former classmate had become a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after working as a researcher at their alma mater in Portugal, Instituto Superior Técnico.
Loureiro was found wounded in the foyer of his condo building in Brookline, Massachusetts, a neighbor told the Boston Globe, and later died at a hospital.
“There was security footage that captured him within a half mile of the professor’s residence in Brookline, and there is video footage of him entering an apartment building in the location of the professor’s apartment,” Foley said of Neves Valente.
Loureiro is believed to have been targeted, a law enforcement official told CNN.
December 16: A break in the case appeared on the internet
An anonymous tipster encouraged Providence Police to check out a post on a Reddit page, according to the police affidavit. The writer – who would turn out to be the man police identified as John – gave the first public description of the suspect’s car.
John later contacted police after seeing a photo of the suspect vehicle on the news, according to the affidavit. While giving his statement to police, officers showed the tipster more images of the car they were seeking.
“Holy sh*t, that might be it,” John told them, the affidavit says.
“It was really a critical turning point, and this was an individual who stepped up and stepped forward for all the right reasons,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Friday, “probably with legitimate fear for what that might mean for his safety, but he did it for all the right reasons.”
December 17: Investigators got the suspect’s name – but stayed quiet
The rented car’s original license plate, found on surveillance video, helped police trace its origin to an Alamo Rent a Car in downtown Boston, according to the Providence Police affidavit.
The company told them the renter’s name: Claudio Manuel Neves Valente.
But officials did not initially release the name, Neronha later said, because they hoped to catch up to Neves Valente when he returned the car.
“We wanted to try to take him without him knowing we were coming,” the attorney general said.
December 18: Police found the suspect’s car – and him dead
Neves Valente never returned the vehicle, but investigators found the Nissan Sentra abandoned near the New Hampshire storage building where he’d rented the unit in November and where investigators say he had been spotted wearing the same clothes the suspect wore after the fatal shooting of Loureiro.
Officers swarmed the facility Thursday and found Neves Valente dead inside an unoccupied unit next to the one he had rented. He had taken his own life, said Providence Chief of Police Oscar L. Perez Jr.
“We are grateful to all who played a part in identifying and tracking down the suspect in the killing of Prof. Loureiro,” MIT said in a statement.
Despite their academic connection three decades ago and an ocean away, investigators did not know why Neves Valente would want to kill Loureiro, Foley said.
December 19: The suspect may have been dead for two days, medical examiner finds
Neves Valente is estimated to have died by suicide on December 16, the New Hampshire Department of Justice Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said after conducting an autopsy Friday morning.
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CNN’s Vasco Cotovio, Evan Perez and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
