The autopsy of Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, has been revealed.
Valente died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in an apparent suicide, two days before he was found in a New Hampshire storage unit.
The attorney general, John M. Formella, announced the news following an autopsy performed by New Hampshire’s chief medical examiner on Friday.
The Context
Neves Valente is believed by investigators to be responsible for the fatal shooting of two students and the wounding of nine other people in a Brown University lecture hall on Saturday, December 13. He is also suspected of killing the MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro two days later at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Neves Valente was a 48-year-old former Brown student and Portuguese national with a last known address in Miami.
What To Know
Neves Valente was found dead on Thursday in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire. According to the autopsy, he appears to have died in the storage unit, the day after the killing of Loureiro.
In the storage unit, investigators found two 9-millimeter pistols, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives said.
Forensic testing determined that one firearm matched the gun used in the mass shooting at Brown, and the other matched the one used in Loureiro’s killing.
The shooting began on the afternoon of Saturday, December 13, when a masked gunman entered Brown’s Barus & Holley Building during a review session for final exams, opened fire, and then fled.
The two students killed were Ella Cook, 19, a sophomore from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, a freshman from Uzbekistan.
The chief of the Providence Police Department, Colonel Oscar L. Perez, said the shooter had acted alone.
Valente had been enrolled at Brown as a graduate student, studying physics from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001, Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, has said.
He only attended three semesters at the university before taking a leave of absence in 2001, and formally withdrawing in July of 2003, Paxson said, in a message to the Brown community shared on the university’s website.
Loureiro and Valente attended the same university in Portugal, officials have said.
What People Are Saying
The press release from the Department of Justice reads: “Attorney General John M. Formella announces that the New Hampshire Department of Justice Office of the Chief Medical Examiner performed an autopsy this morning, Friday, December 19, 2025, on the body of Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, age 48, formerly of Miami, Florida. The examination confirmed that Mr. Neves Valente died as a result of a gunshot wound of the head, and that his manner of death was suicide. Based on the examination findings and investigative information available to date, Mr. Neves Valente is estimated to have died on December 16, 2025.”
What Happens Next?
Authorities are working to determine a motive for the shootings.
The press release states that the Boston Division of the FBI is the appropriate point of contact for further information.
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