Man suspected in Brown University shooting and MIT professor's killing found dead, officials say

A man who is suspected of killing two and wounding several others at Brown University has been found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility, officials said.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Col. Oscar Perez, police chief in Providence, R.I., said at a news conference. Perez said as far as investigators know, the suspect acted alone.

"I will tell you that he took his own life tonight," Perez said.

Investigators believe Valente is responsible for both the shooting at Brown and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was fatally shot in his Brookline home Monday, U.S. attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley said.

Valente and MIT professor Nuno Loureiro attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, Foley said.

The FBI previously said it knew of no links between the two shootings.

Brown University President Christina Paxson said Valente was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001. He was admitted to the graduate school to study physics beginning in September 2000. "He has no current affiliation with the university," she said.

Two people were killed and nine were wounded in the mass shooting Saturday at Brown's engineering building.

The investigation had shifted Thursday when authorities said they were looking into a connection between the Brown mass shooting and an attack two days later near Boston that killed Loureiro.

A second individual who was identified in proximity to the suspect came forward after Wednesday's press conference and helped "blow the lid" off the case, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.

"When you crack it, you crack it. That person led us to the car, led us to the name," Neronha said.

Neronha said the suspect stuck a Maine licence plate over his Florida plate to help conceal his identity. Valente's last known address was in Miami.

There are still "a lot of unknowns" in regard to motive, Neronha said. "We don't know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom," he said.

Frustration had mounted in Providence that the person behind the attack managed to get away and that a clear image of their face hadn't emerged.