What investigators know about MIT shooting suspect Brown after days of manhunt

New details about how police caught up with Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the 48-year-old former Brown graduate student who allegedly carried out a mass shooting at Brown University and killed an MIT professor, emerged after a daylong manhunt in which he made a series of moves designed to evade authorities.

Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said local police helped locate Valente, who was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit, thanks in part to surveillance video and a detailed tip about a vehicle driven by a person who noticed strange behavior on the suspect’s part.

“I’m very serious. Police need to investigate a gray Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental,” the informant told police, according to a complaint released by Rhode Island authorities. “That was the car he was driving.”

The tip and surveillance video, along with the use of license plate reading technology, led investigators to a rental car agency in Massachusetts.

There, police obtained a copy of the rental agreement with the suspect’s name on it, as well as video of the suspect that matched videos of the person of interest seen on the Brown University campus on the day of the shooting, according to the complaint.

That discovery eventually led investigators to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, where they found the suspect dead, authorities said.

Financial records and video evidence confirmed that the storage unit belonged to the alleged suspect and that the rental vehicle was related to the Rhode Island and Massachusetts cases.

Authorities identified the suspect as Valente, a Portuguese national and former Brown University student whose last known address was in Miami, Florida. Authorities said Valente committed suicide Thursday night.

Authorities confirmed that Valente was found with a purse containing two firearms, and evidence recovered from the vehicle matched what was found at the Providence crime scene.

Federal authorities confirmed that shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday, FBI SWAT teams executed court-authorized search warrants at a storage facility in Salem, which is where they found Valente’s body.

Portugal’s Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) confirmed to ABC News that Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente studied between 1995 and 2000 in the school’s engineering physics program, the same one that murdered MIT professor Nuno FG Loureiro was attending at the time.

A 1998 advertisement in Portugal’s official Diario da República referred to Valente’s appointment as a teaching assistant at IST and a 2000 notice in the same publication mentions his termination from the position.

An IST spokesperson declined to comment further on Valente’s history at the institution, due to the ongoing investigation and out of respect for Loureiro’s friends and family.

Brown officials confirmed that Valente was enrolled at the university from fall 2000 to spring 2001 as a physics graduate student, entering Brown’s graduate program in September 2000 before taking a leave of absence in April 2001 and formally retiring in 2003.

“He was not a current student, was not an employee, and did not receive a degree from the University, attending only three semesters as a graduate student until he took a leave of absence in 2001 and formally retired effective July 31, 2003,” Brown University President Christina Paxson wrote in a letter to students and faculty Thursday.

During his time at Brown, he was enrolled only in physics courses, which were normally taught at Barus. & Holley Building. University records indicate he has had no active affiliation with Brown for more than two decades.

Police said the suspect acted alone and there is no indication, at this time, of additional planned attacks. Investigators have not identified any writings, known criminal history or clear motive.

Authorities said forensic teams are still processing evidence recovered in New Hampshire, including firearms, and will compare it to ballistics and DNA evidence from the Providence crime scene.

Paxson said the university is still reviewing how the suspect gained access to the building. He said the building was open that day because testing was taking place and that the university will examine safety procedures in the future.

Investigators said Valente was granted legal status in April 2017 and was issued a green card.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an X post that Valente received his visa through the diversity visa lottery program and announced that, at the direction of President Donald Trump, he was pausing the program.

Each year, the State Department awards up to 50,000 immigrant visas to “winners” of the diversity visa lottery. The program was created by Congress in 1990 to allow applicants from countries with low immigration rates to the United States to come here.

Winners are selected randomly, but must still go through a lengthy application process, which includes submitting a criminal record, being interviewed at an embassy or consulate, and meeting other requirements, such as having a high school diploma or two years of work experience. Applicants can then apply for lawful permanent resident status.

Investigators said they identified Valente by name Wednesday night and weighed whether revealing his identity could cause him to flee or take further action.

Officials said they believed he might return the rental car in Boston or try to leave the area, and they wanted a chance to arrest him without alerting him that police were approaching.

Authorities said it is still unclear exactly when the suspect took his own life, but they noted that he signed in at the storage facility but was never seen leaving.

The site was secured by federal agents and investigators said an autopsy will help determine the time of death.

Armando García of ABC News and Christopher Looft contributed to this report.