Investigators struggled to identify suspect while Brown University gunman went on to kill again, timeline shows

Monday, December 22, 2025 -Investigators faced significant challenges in identifying the suspect in the Brown University classroom shooting, which killed two students and wounded nine others during final exams. 

Early in the investigation, law enforcement released grainy security footage and detained a person of interest, only to clear and release him when evidence didn’t support charges. The lack of clear video from inside the engineering building and limited surveillance around the campus complicated efforts to pinpoint the attacker’s identity in the critical first days after the Dec. 13 shooting.

As authorities scrambled to connect clues, the suspect — later identified as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente — fled the region. Two days after the campus attack, he traveled to Brookline, Massachusetts, and fatally shot MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, escalating the urgency of the manhunt. 

Despite efforts by hundreds of local, state, and federal officers, the identification breakthrough only came after a public tip from a Reddit user who provided timely information about a suspicious grey Nissan connected to the suspect’s movements.

The ensuing search stretched for days and became one of the most intense manhunts in recent U.S. campus violence history. Authorities eventually located Valente’s body in a New Hampshire storage unit, where he died by suicide before they could arrest him. 

The slow pace of early identification, compounded by limited footage and initial missteps, allowed the suspect to remain at large long enough to commit a second killing before law enforcement could act.