Brown University shooting suspect harbored decades‑old grudge, investigators say

Five days after a shooting spree left two Brown University students dead and an MIT physicist fatally wounded in his Boston home, investigators identified Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, as the suspect who died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday in a New Hampshire storage container. Authorities said Valente appeared to harbor a decades‑long grudge over his own failed scientific career, a motive that emerged as they reviewed his past.

Valente, a Portuguese native who once stood out in science competitions, studied at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon before moving to the United States in 2000 on an F-1 student visa. Friends and colleagues recalled a brilliant but volatile student who grew resentful when his ambitions did not translate into academic success at Brown University, where he attended in the early 2000s before dropping out after several months because he felt the coursework was too easy. Scott Watson, a physics professor at Syracuse University who befriended Valente at Brown, described him as a prodigious mind who could be kind yet became frustrated and angry with courses, professors, and living conditions. Another former associate, Kamran Diba of the University of Michigan Medical School, called Valente a spiteful student, noting the long‑standing hostility that followed him. Investigators say Valente crossed paths with one of his alleged victims, MIT physicist Nuno F.G. Loureiro, while they studied in Lisbon in the late 1990s; Loureiro later became a renowned nuclear physicist and professor.

Valente earned a place to study physics in Australia in 1995 after his success at a national physics Olympiad in 1994, and after graduating from IST he moved to the United States in 2000, later becoming a lawful permanent resident in 2017. While at Brown, university leadership said no current Brown faculty could recall Valente, according to a Brown president’s email referenced by officials. He was tracked across the region via a grey Nissan he drove, with law enforcement following leads that ultimately pointed to a storage facility in New Hampshire. A memorial and security image of his vehicle circulated as investigators pieced together his movements during the five‑day manhunt.

Two days before prosecutors say Valente opened fire at Brown University, killing two students and injuring nine others, the suspect is believed to have shot at a classroom on the campus. The next major development came when authorities say he killed Loureiro in his Boston home, marking the MIT physicist as another high‑profile victim in the same spree. Valente was not captured during the initial days of the investigation, and the broader case drew in hundreds of law enforcement officers from agencies including the ATF and the FBI before his body was found.

Criminologist James Alan Fox told the Boston Globe that Valente’s trajectory illustrates a pattern seen in campus shootings: a once promising student who grows embittered when expectations do not materialize. "People who fail when they feel like they have such promise — that’s hard to take," Fox said. "Mass shooters tend to see themselves as victims — victims of injustice... They want to punish people who they hold responsible for their misery." Investigators have continued reviewing Valente’s past in hopes of clarifying a single motive, though the available timeline points to a long‑standing grievance tied to his failed scientific career and perceived slights at the institutions where he studied.

The five‑day search spanned multiple states as investigators traced Valente’s movements, including surveillance footage and vehicle tracking. The case has raised questions about how personal grievances can escalate into violence, even as authorities emphasize that each mass shooting has unique elements. For now, officials say the investigation remains focused on understanding Valente’s background and the specific events that culminated in the deaths in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The community mourns the victims and awaits a fuller account of the events that culminated in the tragedy.