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The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts have wrapped up their inquiry into the tragic mass shooting that took place at Brown University in December, followed by the murder of an MIT professor. Their findings indicate that the single shooter had been planning these acts since 2022.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese citizen residing legally in Miami, Florida, launched the deadly attack on December 13 in Providence, Rhode Island. Two days later, he killed MIT Professor Nuno Loureiro in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The on-campus assault resulted in the deaths of two Brown University students, Ella Cook, 19, and Muhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, while injuring nine others.
Valente, who once attended Brown University, studied physics alongside Loureiro from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001, before leaving the program by 2003. The FBI has clarified that the shootings were not connected to any terrorist activities.
Massachusetts federal prosecutors have released a photograph of Claudio Neves-Valente, naming him as the assailant responsible for the fatal shootings at both Brown University in Rhode Island and MIT in Cambridge.
According to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, Valente viewed his victims as “symbolic” targets. Struggling with long-term suicidal ideations, paranoia and an ongoing “failure to thrive,” the unemployed former ride-hailing driver had an “inflated sense of self” and blamed others for preventing him from reaching his full potential.
Valente, a former physics prodigy, used violence to overcome his shame and punish those he felt contributed to his downfall, investigators found.
The FBI said the attacks were meticulously planned over several years in isolation.
Providence police search floor by floor after a shooting at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Dec. 13, 2025. Nine people were injured and two were killed. (Providence Police Department)
Valente began plotting the Brown University massacre as early as 2022, renting a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, to stash his weapons.
Officials said that because of his transient lifestyle and social isolation, Valente did not have family or peers to report warning signs to authorities.
Following the two shootings, Valente left behind a chilling series of audio and video files confessing to the murders, showing no signs of remorse and failing to explain why he committed the crimes.
An empty Barus and Holley Room 166 at Brown University in Providence, R.I., where a man opened fire during an ECON 0110 review session on Dec. 13, 2024, shooting 11 students. (Kenna Lee/The Brown Daily Herald)
In one file, he called his shooting victims “kind of stupid.” Valente added that he didn’t “give a d—” if he was judged for his actions.
Authorities recovered his body in Salem, New Hampshire, alongside two 9mm Glock pistols after he committed suicide.
Investigators collect evidence at the scene where Brown University shooter Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente was found dead in Salem, N.H., on Dec. 19, 2025. (David McGlynn/Fox News Digital)
The FBI noted both firearms, a Glock 34 used at Brown University and a Glock 26 used in the murder of Loureiro, were legally purchased by Valente from a Florida pawn shop in 2020 and 2022.
Officials said the multi-agency probe into Valente’s motivations involved scouring more than 11,000 surveillance files, analyzing over 2,100 audio and video files from his personal devices, and conducting upward of 260 interviews.