The suspect in the fatal shooting at Brown University in the US has been found dead.Two students, Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, were killed and nine were injured during the shooting inside a classroom building at the Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday.
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday night in Providence, police said the suspect had been found dead.He is a 48-year-old Portuguese man called Claudio Manuel Neves Valente whose last known address was in Miami, Florida, police chief Oscar Perez said.Neves Valente used to be a PhD student in physics at Brown University, the institution’s president said.
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Brown University shooting victims Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook. Pic: AP
He was found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, seemingly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”He may have been dead for a bit of time,” a senior official said.Reddit post ‘blew case wide open’Neves Valente was found after officers received a tip referencing a witness account posted on the social media platform Reddit.
In the post, a witness said he saw the suspect opening a grey Nissan sedan with Florida plates parked behind the Rhode Island Historical Society, just down the road from the Brown University building where the shooting happened.”I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental,” the poster wrote.Police subsequently found the grey Nissan in CCTV footage.Officers said the information provided by the Reddit poster “was consistent with and corroborated” the earlier CCTV footage of the suspect – wearing a face covering – encountering another man less than two hours before the shooting, so they released still images of the witness to identify him.”We had that picture of that second individual, and within an hour, no more than two, that person came forward to two Providence police officers. He blew this case right open,” Rhode Island’s attorney general Peter Neronha said.
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Members of the FBI search for evidence near the campus. Pic: AP
‘A game of cat and mouse’The witness, given the pseudonym John in the affidavit, said he first saw the suspect in a bathroom inside the Brown University building at around 1.45pm. John said he made eye contact with the suspect.John said the suspect left the building, after which “a game of cat and mouse” began between them as John followed the suspect around the area, including to the parking spot of the grey Nissan.John approached the car and saw “two fanny style bags on the rear floorboard on the passenger side”.He continued to follow the suspect, who eventually started to run away from John. When John caught up with the man, he asked him why he was “circling the block”. The suspect did not reply, instead accusing John of “harassing” him.John said he saw the suspect approach the grey Nissan one more time before walking away.The car seen on footage located due to John’s Reddit post led detectives to a car rental company in Boston, Massachusetts, where officers secured video footage showing the suspect’s face and a rental document identifying the suspect as Neves Valente. John later identified the vehicle in CCTV images.Police also matched the clothes Neves Valente was seen wearing at the car rental place on 1 December to those worn by the suspect on the day of the shooting on 13 December.Shooter linked to separate murderNeves Valente was seen wearing a two-tone lighter jacket with the same colour combination and design as the subject, the same or similar black shoes with dark soles, black trousers, a blue shirt poking out from below his jacket, and glasses.Police said earlier that they were also investigating a possible link between the Brown University shooting suspect and the murder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, two days later in a town 50 miles north of Boston.Officials confirmed the link in the latest news conference. “On 15 December, he murdered Nuno Loureiro at Loureiro’s home in Brookline, Massachusetts,” Leah B. Foley, US attorney for the district of Massachusetts, said.
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Nuno Loureiro. Pic: Jake Belcher/MIT via AP
Neves Valente attended the same Portuguese university as Mr Loureiro, who was found dead with gunshot wounds on Monday evening.”It is believed that in Lisbon that those two individuals attended the same university in Portugal,” a federal agent said.How police found suspect’s bodyAfter leaving Rhode Island for Massachusetts, Neves Valente stuck a Maine number plate over the rental car’s plate to help conceal his identity.CCTV footage showed Neves Valente entering a flat building near Mr Loureiro’s.About one hour later, he was seen entering the storage facility in New Hampshire where he was found dead, Ms Foley said.When Neves Valente’s body was discovered, police also found “a satchel, with two firearms and evidence in the car that matches exactly what we see at the scene here in Providence”, Mr Neronha said.”[John] led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, that matched the satchel,” Mr Neronha added.
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People gather outside a facility where the suspect was found. Pic: AP
Neves Valente was a PhD student in physics at Brown from 2000 until the spring of 2001, when he took a leave of absence before formally withdrawing effective July 2003, according to Brown University president Christina Paxson.She said that as a physics student, Neves Valente would have spent “a great deal of time” in the building where the shooting took place for classes.This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.Please refresh the page for the fullest version.You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.