The United States Department of Justice has released chilling new details about a series of shootings last December that claimed the lives of two Brown University students and a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The shooter, identified as Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown student, meticulously planned the attacks for years and left behind video recordings confessing to the murders, though he offered no clear motive.
Chilling Confessions in Stored Videos
According to information made public on Tuesday, Valente's body was discovered in a New Hampshire storage facility on December 18. Authorities recovered an electronic device containing a series of short videos he recorded after the shootings. In these recordings, made in Portuguese, Valente admitted he had planned the attacks for at least six semesters.
He provided no reason for targeting Brown University or MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, whom he had known decades earlier when they attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000. A translated transcript shows Valente felt he had "nothing to apologize for," stating, "I'm not going to apologize because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me."
The Sequence of a Tragedy
The violence unfolded over two days in December. On December 13, Valente entered an engineering building at Brown University in Providence. The attack resulted in the deaths of two students: 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov. Nine other individuals were injured in the shooting.
Valente described in his videos that he believed the auditorium was empty, with students having escaped, when in reality they were hiding under desks. "I never wanted to do it in an auditorium. I wanted to do it in a regular room," he said, adding he had "chickened out" of previous opportunities.
Two days later, on December 15, Valente shot and killed Professor Nuno Loureiro at his home in Brookline, a suburb of Boston. The two men shared an academic past in Portugal, with Loureiro graduating from the prestigious Instituto Superior Técnico in 2000, the same year Valente was let go from a position at the Lisbon university.
Addressing Misinformation and a Random Target
In his videos, Valente directly countered misinformation circulating online after the attacks. He specifically addressed false claims spread by conservative influencer Laura Loomer that he spoke Arabic during the incident. Valente clarified he does not speak Arabic and had no intention of making a political statement.
He insisted his victims were chosen at random and denied suffering from mental illness. Valente also stated he did not seek fame and that the videos were not meant to be a manifesto. His stated "only objective" was to leave on his own terms and ensure he would not be "the one who ended up suffering the most." He critically assessed his own execution of the murders as "a little incompetent" but added, "But at least something was done."
Valente's identification was aided by a witness at Brown University who had several encounters with him before the attack. After authorities released images, the witness posted on Reddit, recognizing Valente and suggesting police investigate a rental gray Nissan. This crucial tip, encouraged by other Reddit users and passed to the FBI, led investigators to connect a vehicle to the suspect.
Valente, who first arrived in the US around 25 years ago to study physics at Brown before leaving in 2001, held legal permanent residence since September 2017. His last known residence was in Miami. In his final messages, he expressed no particular hatred or love for the United States or Portugal, stating he had lived "without caring for a very long time now."
Brown University, in a statement, said the "gravity of this tragedy continues to weigh heavily" on its community as it mourns the lost students and prays for the recovery of the injured.
