Brown University shooting suspect found dead
By Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky, Jack Date, Luke Barr, Katherine Faulders, Pierre Thomas, and Jack Moore, ABC
(ABC) — The suspect in last weekend's mass shooting at Brown University was identified as a 48-year-old former graduate student who had studied at the school some 25 years ago.
During a news conference Thursday, Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez identified the suspect as Claudio Neves Valente and said he took his own life.
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that the suspect was found dead inside a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, on Thursday night.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Valente enrolled as a Ph.D student in Brown's physics program in 2000 and withdrew a few years later. She said it was believed, as a physics student, he spent considerable time in the Barus & Holley engineering building targeted in the attack that left two students dead and wounded nine others.
He had not current affiliation with the school.
The police chief said Valente was a native of Portugal with a last known address in Miami.
Earlier Thursday, multiple sources briefed on the investigation told ABC News that the Brown shooting and the murder two days later of an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts, may be linked.
Police in Providence said they tracked down Valente thanks to a surveillance video and a tip about a vehicle that led to a car rental shop in Massachusetts. There police obtained a copy of the rental agreement with the suspect's name, as well as video of the suspect that matched the videos of the person of interest seen on the Brown University campus on the day of the shooting.
On Saturday afternoon, two Brown students were killed and nine others were injured in a mass shooting on the Rhode Island campus. The gunman fled the scene and has not been publicly identified.
On Monday night, MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, also a native of Portugal, was found shot at his home in the upscale Boston suburb of Brookline, officials said. Loureiro, 47, died on Tuesday at the hospital.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News' Katherine Faulders and Pierre Thomas contributed to this report.
