It was Thursday morning that investigators definitively determined that the same individual opened fire on a study group at Brown University and, two days later, murdered an MIT professor, raising fears among law enforcement officials that the killer may have had other intended targets, according to the top federal law enforcement official in Boston.
“We had no idea if he had a hit list and these were just the first two stops on his tour,” Leah Foley, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, told ABC News on Friday.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley speaks to ABC News, December 19, 2025.
ABC News
Foley said the suspect, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, was found dead in the New Hampshire storage unit with two 9mm Glock firearms equipped with green laser sights, five magazines with nearly 200 rounds of ammunition and nearly $900 in cash. In his car, investigators said they found more ammunition and body armor.
“This was very premeditated and he was definitely equipped for the mission he was looking to perform,” Foley said.
Claudio Neves Valente, suspect in the shooting at Brown University in Providence, in this undated image released December 18, 2025.
Massachusetts Federal Attorney via Reuters
Neves Valente, 48, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
An autopsy was being performed Friday to determine how long the suspect had been dead when his body was found. Ballistics and DNA tests were being conducted.
Investigators were also searching the contents of three USB flash drives found in the suspect’s car to see if they contained clues to a motive. It is unclear at this time if the suspect had other potential targets, according to people familiar with the investigation.
A gray Nissan car is parked at a storage facility, where the Brown University shooter, identified by authorities as Claudio Neves Valente, took his own life, in Salem, New Hampshire, in this image released December 19, 2025.
FBI Boston via Reuters
Foley said investigators believe Brown University and MIT professor Nuno FG Loureiro were intentionally targeted, but they don’t know why.
“I don’t know that even if I had explained why, that would be a satisfactory answer to anyone,” Foley said. “He was evil.”
The possibility that the killer might have struck again gave new urgency to the search. Federal agents fanned out across four New England states and were stationed at airports in Boston and Hartford.
Providence police officers join state and federal agents searching for the Brown University shooter, in Salem, New Hampshire, U.S., on December 18, 2025.
CJ Gunther/Reuters
“We had no idea if he was going to perform in New England again or try to leave New England,” Foley said.
Neves Valente had already changed his license plate once, according to authorities. On the car, investigators said they found another expired license plate.
The suspect was a former Brown graduate student who attended the school about 25 years ago, school officials said. He had enrolled as a doctoral student in Brown’s physics program in 2000 and attended for less than a year, before taking a leave of absence and then withdrawing.
Neves Valente and Loureiro were both Portuguese nationals and had attended the same engineering physics program at the Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa, the school confirmed to ABC News.
