After days of fear and unanswered questions, the man believed to be behind deadly shootings at two major U.S. universities has been found dead, authorities said Thursday.
The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown University physics student, died by suicide at a storage facility in New Hampshire, police said, bringing an end to a tense multi-state manhunt.
Valente was suspected of carrying out a mass shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island and later killing an MIT professor at his home near Boston — attacks that shook elite academic communities and heightened concerns about campus safety.
On December 13, a gunman opened fire inside a Brown University building while students were sitting for exams, killing two people and injuring nine others. The victims were identified as Ella Cook, a student leader, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an aspiring neurosurgeon originally from Uzbekistan.
Several of the injured remain hospitalised in stable condition, university officials said.
Two days later, Nuno Loureiro, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was fatally shot at his home in Brookline, outside Boston.
Investigators initially struggled to identify the suspect, releasing surveillance images and issuing public appeals. Authorities later said Valente took steps to avoid detection, including switching licence plates on a rental vehicle and using a difficult-to-trace phone.
Officials said he acted alone and no motive has yet been established.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said the discovery of the suspect’s body brought relief to a shaken community, while Brown University President Christina Paxson noted that healing would take time.
The shootings have renewed debate over gun violence in the United States, where more than 300 mass shootings have been recorded so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
While the manhunt has ended, campuses across the country continue to grapple with grief, fear and questions about safety.
(AFP)
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