Brown shooter also murdered MIT professor - whom he went to college with - prosecutors say
Dec. 19th, 2025 02:56 am
Valente at car-rental office on Atlantic Avenue in Boston on Dec. 1, from Providence detective's affidavit.
Claudio Neves Valente, who authorities say killed himself as law enforcement closed in on him at a Salem, NH self-storage facility tonight, murdered not just two Brown students on Saturday, but an MIT physicist on Monday, the US Attorney's office in Boston says.
Valente, 48, and MIT professor Nuno Loureiro were both Portuguese natives and attended the same college in Portugal - the Instituto Superior Técnico.
"My understanding is they did know each other," but what led Neves Valente to gun down Loureiro at Loureiro's Brookline home remains under investigation, US Attorney Leah Foley said, adding there is no question the professor was his intended target.
Neves Valente enrolled in a physics PhD program at Brown in the fall of 2000, but took a leave of absences in the spring of 2001, then never returned, Brown President Christina Paxon said. Loureiro entered Imperial College London, earning his PhD in 2005.
Police say they found his body with a gun on his hip and another at his feet inside the storage facility on Rte. 28, just north of the Massachusetts line.
Officials in Providence said Neves Valente acted alone and that there was no connection to anti-Semitism.
According to the US Attorney's office in Boston - which filed an arrest warrant in federal court today - Neves Valente rented a hotel room in Boston on Nov. 26, and at some point rented the Salem storage room. On Dec. 1, according to an affidavit by a Providence Police detective, he rented a gray Nissan Sentra from Alamo Rent a Car at 270 Atlantic Ave. in Boston - the same car spotted in surveillance photos and by at least one witness near Brown.
Foley said Neves Valente was spotted on surveillance video taken near Loureiro's condo - and that video from just an hour after the shooting from the Salem storage facility showed him wearing the same clothes.
Although Neves Valente originally entered the country on a student visa, to attend Brown, he was granted lawful permanent status in 2017, officials in Providence said.



