The discovery of the physique of Claudio Neves Valente in a New Hampshire storage facility Thursday evening capped days of terror following two lethal shootings on two separate main college campuses.
But the story, investigators say, started a long time earlier.
Here is a timeline of the 48-year-old suspected gunman’s movements from when he first could have encountered one of the victims, in line with prosecutors:
1995: Suspect and sufferer attended similar tutorial program
Neves Valente was in the similar physics program as one of his alleged victims, Nuno Loureiro, beginning in 1995 of their native Portugal, US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley mentioned in a information convention late Thursday.
It just isn’t clear if or how they might have interacted over the subsequent 5 years or in the event that they had been in contact afterward.
Neves Valente was a instructing assistant at Instituto Superior Técnico till his contract resulted in 2000, the similar yr Loureiro graduated along with his physics diploma. It just isn’t clear why the contract ended.
Neves Valente started finding out in 2000 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in line with Foley.
He seemingly took physics courses in the Barus & Holley constructing, Brown President Christina Paxson mentioned in a statement Thursday to college students and college.
Neves Valente was on an F-1 visa, however his research at Brown ended after lower than a full yr. This is a non-immigrant visa for worldwide college students to review full time.
Neves Valente reentered the US in 2017 through the range visa program, the place a specified quantity of candidates from designated nations are admitted by a lottery system, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
There had been about 6,000 Portuguese range visa applications that yr, with 36 accepted, State Department data present. The range lottery program is being suspended in response to the killings, Noem mentioned.
Neves Valente obtained everlasting authorized US residency, often known as a inexperienced card, and, sooner or later later, a Florida driver’s license.
November 2025: Suspect’s first recorded exercise in New England
More than 20 years after first getting into the US and with no recognized US felony report, Neves Valente rented a storage unit at Extra Space Storage in Salem, New Hampshire, in line with federal prosecutors.
He incessantly used bank cards beneath a false identify, in line with the prosecutor, together with a mobile phone with service designed to be tough to tie to a bodily location.
“He was sophisticated in hiding his tracks,” mentioned Foley.
Neves Valente picked up a automobile at a automotive rental workplace in Boston on December 1, Foley mentioned, citing a display screen seize of the video, which authorities launched of the suspect later in the investigation.
The similar day the grey Nissan Sentra was rented, it was first seen in surveillance video on the Brown campus, about 40 miles away.
The sedan would proceed to be seen intermittently on campus over the subsequent 11 days, Foley mentioned.
Neves Valente walked around the space of the Barus & Holley constructing – the place he seemingly took courses 25 years earlier – for about six hours throughout the day, surveillance video confirmed.
The suspect interacted with somebody round 2:15 p.m., one video confirmed. The individual – recognized in a police affidavit as John – adopted Neves Valente as a result of of his suspicious habits. The suspect accused John of “harassing” him, then disappeared, the doc says.
About two hours later, Neves Valente went right into a Barus & Holley auditorium and opened hearth, killing students Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, investigators mentioned. Nine others had been wounded.
A complete of 44 spent 9 mm casings had been present in the constructing, Providence Police investigators mentioned in an affidavit, together with two high-capacity magazines.
There was no recognized connection between Neves Valente and the college students, officers mentioned.
“We’re still investigating the motive in this case … because, like I said, he was very careful in his communications,” Foley mentioned Thursday.
December 14: Suspect returned to Massachusetts and switched license plates
Within a day of the shooting in Rhode Island, Neves Valente returned to Massachusetts, investigators mentioned. To obscure his movements, he changed his rental automotive’s tag with a license plate from Maine.
“We haven’t figured out now where he got that plate from,” mentioned Foley. “We have information that that plate was a very old plate that had been taken out of registration status over a decade ago.”
“He knew what he was doing. He was changing plates. That’s why the collective work of following and finding this car made it more difficult,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha mentioned.
Neves Valente shot and killed Loureiro, 47, investigators mentioned; the suspect’s former classmate had become a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after working as a researcher at their alma mater in Portugal, Instituto Superior Técnico.
Loureiro was discovered wounded in the lobby of his rental constructing in Brookline, Massachusetts, a neighbor informed the Boston Globe, and later died at a hospital.
“There was security footage that captured him within a half mile of the professor’s residence in Brookline, and there is video footage of him entering an apartment building in the location of the professor’s apartment,” Foley mentioned of Neves Valente.
Loureiro is believed to have been focused, a regulation enforcement official informed NCS.
An nameless tipster inspired Providence Police to take a look at a publish on a Reddit web page, in line with the police affidavit. The author – who would transform the man police recognized as John – gave the first public description of the suspect’s automotive.
John later contacted police after seeing a photograph of the suspect automobile on the information, in line with the affidavit. While giving his assertion to police, officers confirmed the tipster extra pictures of the automotive they had been looking for.
“Holy sh*t, that might be it,” John informed them, the affidavit says.
“It was really a critical turning point, and this was an individual who stepped up and stepped forward for all the right reasons,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told NCS’s Kate Bolduan on Friday, “probably with legitimate fear for what that might mean for his safety, but he did it for all the right reasons.”
The rented automotive’s unique license plate, discovered on surveillance video, helped police hint its origin to an Alamo Rent a Car in downtown Boston, in line with the Providence Police affidavit.
The firm informed them the renter’s identify: Claudio Manuel Neves Valente.
But officers didn’t initially launch the identify, Neronha later mentioned, as a result of they hoped to catch as much as Neves Valente when he returned the automotive.
“We wanted to try to take him without him knowing we were coming,” the legal professional basic said.
December 18: Police discovered the suspect’s automotive – and him useless
Neves Valente by no means returned the automobile, however investigators discovered the Nissan Sentra deserted close to the New Hampshire storage constructing the place he’d rented the unit in November and the place investigators say he had been noticed sporting the similar garments the suspect wore after the deadly shooting of Loureiro.
Officers swarmed the facility Thursday and discovered Neves Valente useless inside an unoccupied unit subsequent to the one he had rented. He had taken his personal life, mentioned Providence Chief of Police Oscar L. Perez Jr.
“We are grateful to all who played a part in identifying and tracking down the suspect in the killing of Prof. Loureiro,” MIT mentioned in an announcement.
Despite their tutorial connection three a long time in the past and an ocean away, investigators didn’t know why Neves Valente would need to kill Loureiro, Foley mentioned.
Neves Valente is estimated to have died by suicide on December 16, the New Hampshire Department of Justice Office of the Chief Medical Examiner mentioned after conducting an post-mortem Friday morning.