Man suspected of Brown University shooting found dead in N.H. storage facility, police say

The person suspected of killing two Brown University students and injuring nine others Saturday — who was also believed to be connected to the murder of an MIT professor in Brookline — was found dead in a storage facility in New Hampshire, police said Thursday night.

“​​Tonight, our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said at a press conference Thursday night

Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Salem, N.H., Col. Oscar Perez of the Providence Police Department said at the press conference. He was a Brown University student and his last known address was in Miami, Perez said.

“Even though the suspect was found dead tonight, our work is not done,” said Ted Docks, Special Agent in Charge for the FBI’s Boston office.

Perez said a video gave authorities a description of a vehicle, which was corroborated through a tip. Flock license plate reader cameras traced the car rental to Massachusetts, where police obtained a copy of the agreement which provided his real name, Perez said.

Police searched the storage facility with a warrant before 9 p.m. Thursday night, where Neves Valente was found dead. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said he was found with the satchel, two firearms, and “evidence in the car that matches exactly what we see at the scene here in Providence.”

“It was all about groundwork, public assistance, interviews of individuals in good old fashioned policing,” said Perez.

Six-day manhunt lead law enforcement to N.H. storage facility

State and federal law enforcement surrounded the Extra Space Storage facility on Hampshire Street in Salem, New Hampshire Thursday evening.

The multi-state manhunt came after a gunman entered a Brown University study session in the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building and fired 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun Saturday. Two students — Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov — were killed, and nine others were injured. Three injured students have since been released from the hospital.

For six days, Providence police and other law enforcement had requested the public’s help in identifying a suspect as the alleged shooter continued to evade capture. A person detained within hours of the shooting was released from custody on Sunday as the investigation took a new direction, police said.

The breakthrough in the case appeared to come Thursday after authorities reportedly spoke to a person “in proximity” to the person of interest, who told police he confronted the suspected gunman. 

“He blew this case right open,” Neronha said.

Brown University shooter was a former student there, university president says

Neves Valente was enrolled in a physics PhD program at Brown from the fall of 2000 until taking a leave of absence in April of 2001, Brown University President Christina Paxson said. He formally withdrew from the university in 2003, she told reporters Thursday night. 

“I think it’s safe to assume that this man, when he was a student, spent a great deal of time in that building for classes and other activities as a PhD student in physics,” Paxson said. “He has no current active affiliation with the university or a campus presence.”

MIT Professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was fatally shot in his Brookline home on Monday.

“It is believed that in Lisbon, (Loureiro and Neves Valente) attended the same university in Portugal,” Docks said Thursday evening, but referred more details about a potential link to the Brookline slaying to federal prosecutors in Massachusetts.

The United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah B. Foley announced that her office, the FBI, and the ATF would hold a press conference at 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

Molly Farrar is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on education, politics, crime, and more.