The man who killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor last December planned the crime over the course of three years, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
The shooter, Claudio Neves Valente, 48, had been living alone, making it difficult to trace his motive, investigators said in a report released Wednesday that revealed new information about the crime.
In Dec. 13, Mr. Neves Valente, a native of Portugal and a legal US resident who lived in Miami, opened fire multiple times in a Brown lecture hall in Providence, RI. Two students, MukhammadAziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, were killed. Two days later, he shot and killed an MIT scientist, Dr. Nuno Loureiro, Brookline, Mass.
Mr. Neves Valente then drove to New Hampshire, where he committed suicide in a warehouse. The police on December 18 found his body, two guns and video recordings in which he admitted that he was the shooter but did not blame himself.
Friends and family of Mr. Neves Valente said in interviews that they lost track of him years ago, after he quit his job in Portugal and later moved to the United States. In Wednesday’s report, investigators shared information about his movements in the years leading up to the shooting.
The nine-millimeter handguns found with his body were legally purchased at a pawnshop in Florida, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts wrote in a report.
Mr. Neves Valente began planning the attack in 2022, which is when he rented a warehouse in New Hampshire and brought his weapons there, investigators said in their report.
His motive has been a mystery ever since he was identified as the killer. The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit tried to answer that question.
The victims of Mr. Neves Valente was “symbolic in nature,” the report said.
“Brown University as a whole and Dr. Loureiro represented to the shooter his personal failure and the injustice he saw being done by others over time,” the investigators wrote. Mr. Neves Valente “almost managed to overcome his shame and jealousy” by violently punishing those he blamed for his own downfall, they added.
“Neves Valente’s short-term lifestyle, long-term planning, and social isolation provide very little opportunity for onlookers” to see the significance of what he was planning, the report said. Investigators added that he lacked the support of family and peers who may have seen the warning signs.
Three students who were injured in the December incident each filed a lawsuit against Brown, saying the school failed to provide adequate security.
The university’s spokesperson, Brian Clark, said in a statement that the school will review the complaints “carefully and promptly” and respond through the legal process. “We are committed to the safety and security of our community and to supporting the recovery and rehabilitation of our students, faculty, staff and community members at large,” he said.
