The suspect in the Brown University shooting has been found dead in New Hampshire, according to an AP source

PROVIDENCE, RI – A man suspected of killing two people and injuring several others at Brown University has been found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility, authorities said.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said at a news conference.

Investigators believe Valiant is responsible for both the shooting of Brown and the slaying of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was shot to death Monday at his Brookline home, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Authorities have not formally confirmed a connection between the two shootings.

The official could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Two people were killed and nine others were injured in the shooting at Brown University on Saturday. The investigation was moved Thursday after authorities said they were looking for a connection between the Brown mass shooting and an attack near Boston that killed MIT professor Nuno FG Lorrero.

The FBI previously said it was not aware of any connection between the cases.

How the Brown investigation unfolded

It has been almost a week since the shooting at Brown. Frustration grew in Providence that the person behind the attack managed to escape and no clear image of their face emerged.

A second person who was identified as being close to the suspect came forward after Wednesday’s press conference and helped “blow the lid” on the case, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.

“When you crack it, you crack it. That person brought us to the car, brought us to the name,” Neronha said.

Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack took place in the older part of the engineering building, which has fewer cameras. And investigators believe the shooter entered and left through a door that faces the campus along a residential street, which could explain why Brown’s camera didn’t capture footage of the man.

What can be learned from past research?

In such targeted and highly publicized attacks, the shooters usually kill themselves or are killed or arrested by police, said Katherine Schwitt, a retired FBI agent and expert on mass shootings. When they go away, searches can take time.

In the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, it took investigators four days to catch the two brothers. In 2023, Army reservist Robert Card was found dead in Lewiston, Maine, two days after killing 18 people and injuring 13 others in an apparent suicide.

The man accused of killing conservative political figure Charlie Kirk in September turned himself in about a day and a half after the attack on Utah Valley University’s campus. And Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges in the slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan last year, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.

MIT mourns the loss of a respected professor

Loureiro, who is married, joined MIT in 2016 and last year was named to lead the school’s Center for Plasma Science and Fusion, where he works to advance clean energy technology and other research. When he took over the center, one of MIT’s largest laboratories, more than 250 people worked in seven buildings. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.

He grew up in Viseu in central Portugal and studied in Lisbon before earning his doctorate in London, according to MIT. He was a researcher at the Institute for Nuclear Fusion in Lisbon before joining MIT, the university said.

“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his frank, compassionate manner,” Dennis White, an engineering professor who leads MIT’s Center for Plasma Science and Fusion, told a campus publication.

Loureiro said he hopes his work will shape the future.

“It’s not hyperbole to say that MIT is the place to find solutions to some of humanity’s biggest problems,” Loureiro said when he was named to lead the plasma science lab last year. “Fusion Energy Will Change the Course of Human History.”