Suspect in Brown University shooting and MIT professor’s killing was once a physics student

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The man suspected in a mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor was in the same academic program as the professor in Portugal before attending Brown on a student visa.

Claudio Neves Valente was once a promising high school physics student but was let go from Portugal’s premier engineering school, Instituto Superior Técnico, in 2000 and withdrew from a Brown University graduate program three years later without a degree.

On Thursday, Neves Valente, who immigrated to the U.S. from Portugal, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility, said Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief.

Investigators believe the 48-year-old is responsible for fatally shooting two students and wounding nine other people in a Brown lecture hall on Dec. 13, wearing the kinds of pants and shoes that one witness said are typical of restaurant workers. Investigators believe that two days later, he killed former classmate Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his home in the Boston suburbs, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Providence.

Authorities have offered no motive, but what is clear is that life hadn’t gone the way that Neves Valente envisioned.

Neves Valente was born in Torres Novas, Portugal, about 75 miles (121 kilometers) north of Lisbon. As a high school student, he competed in a national physics competition in 1994, coming in third place, according to a Portuguese physics magazine. Five of the top finishers got to compete in an international competition the following year in Australia.

From 1995 to 2000, he was in the same physics program in Lisbon with Loureiro, federal prosecutor Leah B. Foley said. Loureiro graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico in 2000, according to his MIT faculty page. A termination notice from the Lisbon university’s then president, shows that Neves Valente was let go from a position at Instituto Superior Técnico that same year.

Neves Valente came to Brown that fall as a graduate student on a student visa. Brown University President Christina Paxson said he took a leave in 2001 and formally withdrew effective July 31, 2003.

During his 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 this month’s shooting took place because that’s where the vast majority of physics courses take place. However, detailed records indicating where classes were held don’t extend back to 2001.

Paxson said Brown found no indication of any public safety interactions or other concerns while Neves Valente was a student.

“As of yet, we have not identified any employee who recalls Neves Valente nor is there any Brown record of recent contact between this individual and Brown,” Paxson said.

After leaving Brown, he eventually obtained legal permanent residence status in September 2017, Foley said. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.

His last known address was about 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Miami. The yellow house with a red roof is in a working-class neighborhood that features large houses, mostly with fenced backyards and basements.

Some neighbors who talked with The Associated Press on Friday said they had never seen Neves Valente. No police were in sight.

Edward Pol, a race car mechanic who lives across the street from the home, said the owner rents some rooms to people. He said he never talked to Neves Valente but had seen him several times, most recently two or three months ago. He said the Portuguese man was always busy, standing outside and on phone calls. He realized the man was the suspect when he saw his pictures on the news Friday morning.

A man who answered the door through an intercom at the home said he was the homeowner but declined to identify himself or make any comment.

While Neves Valente’s life remained a mystery, Loureiro, the slain MIT physicist and fusion scientist, was excelling. Loureiro joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, one of its largest laboratories. The 47-year-old scientist from Viseu, Portugal, had been working to explain the physics behind astronomical phenomena such as solar flares.

Portugal’s top diplomat said Friday that the government was taken aback by revelations that a Portuguese man is the main suspect. Police in Portugal said they were contacted by U.S. authorities Thursday.

There are still “a lot of unknowns” in regard to motive, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said. “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom,” he said.

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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Associated Press journalists Barry Hatton and Helena Alves in Portugal, Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Matt O’Brien in Providence contributed.