This picture supplied by Windfall Police Dept. reveals surveillance pictures of Claudio Neves Valente, a suspect within the mass taking pictures at Brown College. AP-Yonhap
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Thirty years in the past, Claudio Neves Valente and Nuno F.G. Loureiro had been classmates with vibrant futures. Each excelled in physics and made their method from their dwelling nation of Portugal to the U.S., selecting the campuses of prestigious East Coast universities.
However Neves Valente’s path took a darker flip than his former peer. Investigators say the 48-year-old fatally shot two college students final week at Brown College in Windfall, the place he was a graduate scholar within the early 2000s, and later killed Loureiro, who led one of many largest laboratories on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise.
Authorities have provided no motive for the shootings or elaborated on what, if any, historical past was between the 2 males.
Neves Valente’s was discovered useless Thursday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New Hampshire storage facility, ending a search that began with final Saturday’s taking pictures in a Brown lecture corridor, the place 9 different individuals had been additionally wounded. Authorities consider that on Monday, two days after the Brown taking pictures, Neves Valente shot Loureiro on the professor’s dwelling within the Boston suburbs, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Windfall. An post-mortem discovered Neves Valente died Tuesday.
In highschool, Neves Valente had been a promising physics scholar, however he was let go from Portugal’s premier engineering faculty, Instituto Superior Técnico, in 2000 and withdrew from a Brown College graduate program three years later with out a diploma.
Earlier than his dying, he was renting a room in a house in a working class Miami neighborhood, the previous 20 years of his life a thriller. What he was doing for a job was unclear. One witness to the Brown taking pictures famous he was carrying the sorts of pants and footwear which are typical of restaurant staff.
Neves Valente was born in Torres Novas, Portugal, about 75 miles (121 kilometers) north of Lisbon. As a highschool scholar, he competed in a nationwide physics competitors in 1994, coming in third place, in line with a Portuguese physics journal. 5 of the highest finishers bought to compete in a global competitors the next 12 months in Australia.
From 1995 to 2000, he was in the identical physics program in Lisbon with Loureiro, federal prosecutor Leah B. Foley stated. Loureiro graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico in 2000, in line with his MIT school web page. A termination discover from the Lisbon college’s then president reveals that Neves Valente was let go from a place at Instituto Superior Técnico that very same 12 months.
Neves Valente got here to Brown that fall as a graduate scholar on a scholar visa. Brown College President Christina Paxson stated he took a depart in 2001 and formally withdrew efficient July 31, 2003.
Round that point, he posted on the Brown physics web site that he was again dwelling in Portugal and had dropped out of this system completely, in line with a webpage saved by the Web Archive. Then in Portuguese, he added: “And the ethical of the story is: The perfect liar is the one who manages to deceive himself. These exist in every single place, however at occasions they proliferate in additional surprising locations.”
Throughout his time at Brown, he enrolled solely in physics courses. Paxson stated it’s seemingly that he would have taken programs and hung out on the constructing the place the taking pictures occurred as a result of that’s the place the overwhelming majority of physics programs happen.
Paxson stated Brown discovered no indication of any public security interactions or different issues whereas Neves Valente was a scholar.
“As of but, we’ve got not recognized any worker who remembers Neves Valente neither is there any Brown report of latest contact between this particular person and Brown,” Paxson stated.
A former classmate of Neves Valente at Brown, Syracuse College professor Scott Watson, recalled being “basically his solely good friend” within the graduate program in physics. Over dinners at a Portuguese restaurant close to campus, Neves Valente shared his frustrations.
“He would say the courses had been too straightforward — actually, for him they had been. He already knew many of the materials and was genuinely spectacular,” Watson stated.
When Neves Valente determined to go away, Watson inspired him to remain however to no avail. He stated he by no means noticed or heard from Neves Valente once more.
In September 2017, Neves Valente obtained authorized everlasting residence standing within the U.S., Foley stated. It was not instantly clear the place he was between taking a depart of absence from the varsity in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
His final identified tackle was about 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Miami. The yellow home with a pink roof is in a working-class neighborhood that options giant homes.
Some neighbors who talked with The Related Press on Friday stated they’d by no means seen Neves Valente. No police had been in sight.
Edward Pol, a race automobile mechanic who lives throughout the road from the house, stated the proprietor rents some rooms to individuals. He stated he by no means talked to Neves Valente however had seen him a number of occasions, most just lately two or three months in the past. He realized the person was the suspect when he noticed his photos on the information Friday morning.
A person who answered the door by an intercom on the dwelling stated he was the home-owner however declined to determine himself or make any remark.
Whereas Neves Valente’s life remained a thriller, his former classmate Loureiro was excelling. Loureiro joined MIT in 2016 and was named final 12 months to guide the varsity’s Plasma Science and Fusion Middle, one among its largest laboratories. The 47-year-old scientist from Viseu, Portugal, had been working to elucidate the physics behind astronomical phenomena equivalent to photo voltaic flares.
Portugal’s high diplomat stated Friday that the federal government was stunned by revelations {that a} Portuguese man is the primary suspect.
There are nonetheless “numerous unknowns” in regard to motive, Rhode Island Lawyer Normal Peter Neronha stated. “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these college students and why this classroom.”
