A poster seeking information about the campus shooting suspect is seen on the campus of Brown University on Dec. 17, 2025, in Providence, R.I.
Robert F. Bukaty/AP/AP
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Robert F. Bukaty/AP/AP
A Reddit post by an observant witness helped lead investigators to the gunman officials say was responsible for the killing of two students during the shooting at Brown University on Saturday and for the fatal shooting of an MIT physics professor two days later.
That’s according to an affidavit from the Providence Police Department.
Brown students Ella Cook, 19, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, were killed and nine were injured in the attack on Saturday at the school. MIT physics professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro was killed at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, about 50 miles away from the site of the mass shooting in Providence, on Monday.
Earlier this week, law enforcement tracked Valente to a Salem, New Hampshire, storage unit where he was discovered dead.
“While we’ll never be able to prosecute this individual, I hope this result begins to provide some small measure of closure for the victims and their families,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Here’s what we know:
The suspect had ties to Brown University and slain MIT professor
Police say Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, is the man responsible for the two attacks in New England.
He was born in Torres Novas, Santarem, Portugal and was a legal permanent resident of the United States. Valente arrived in the country in August 2000 as a graduate student at Brown under an F-1 visa, which is reserved for international…