U.S. authorities announced Thursday that they have found the suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island dead. They identified him as a 48-year-old citizen of Portuguese nationality who had studied at that academic institution and had committed suicide.
Providence Police Chief Óscar Pérez confirmed in a news conference that the suspect “took his own life tonight,” five days after he committed the shooting in which he killed two students and injured another dozen and in which he acted alone.
The agency found his lifeless body in a store in Salem, New Hampshire, along with a wallet and two firearms that will be examined for evidence and DNA, although Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, who was also present at the news conference, indicated that “we are 100 percent confident that this is our target and that this case is closed in terms of prosecuting the individuals involved.”
For her part, Brown University President Christina Hull Paxson has confirmed that the deceased suspect, Claudio Valente, was enrolled at the center from September 2000 to April 2001, but dropped out in July 2003.
Shortly thereafter, Massachusetts District Attorney Leah Foley held a press conference in which she stated that Valente had returned to the state of Massachusetts from Rhode Island, where he murdered Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno Loureiro, also of Portuguese nationality, two days after the shooting.
“Between December 13th and 14th, Claudio Valente returned to Massachusetts. On December 15th, he murdered MIT professor Nuno Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts,” said the prosecutor, who did not provide any details about the suspect’s motives, but indicated that both had attended the same academic program between 1995 and 2000.
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