Authorities across New England and Connecticut are trying to piece together the final movements of Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the man suspected in the deadly Brown University shooting and the killing of an MIT professor.
New details suggest he may have tried to return a rental car in Connecticut before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New Hampshire. That’s left a lot of people from Hartford to New Haven wondering how the multi-state manhunt really played out.
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Suspect’s Connecticut Rental Car Connection
A Rhode Island arrest warrant says Neves Valente reached out to a rental car agency at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks. He asked to change his drop-off location from Boston to Connecticut.
Investigators tracking the gray Nissan Sentra he’d rented in Massachusetts jumped on the call right away. Connecticut State Police, already on alert after bulletins went out to law enforcement in Bridgeport, Stamford, and Waterbury, started following up on leads that suggested the suspect might be near Bradley airport.
Despite the urgency, officials later decided he never actually showed up at the airport. That’s a strange twist, honestly.
State Police Find No Evidence at Bradley
Working with airport authorities and using license-plate surveillance systems, Connecticut State Police checked lots, access roads, and nearby facilities.
They found no confirmed evidence that Neves Valente or the rented Nissan Sentra passed through Bradley. For people who travel through Windsor Locks from places like New Britain or Middletown, it’s a bit unsettling how fast a manhunt can zero in on a familiar spot—even when it turns out to be a dead end.
From Brown University Shooting to New Hampshire Storage Unit
Neves Valente, 48, was a former Brown University grad student and a Portuguese citizen. His alleged actions left communities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts shaken.
Authorities say he carried out a brutal attack at Brown’s engineering building in Providence, fatally shooting two students and injuring several others. Investigators later found him at a storage facility in New Hampshire, where he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Victims at Brown University and MIT
Officials say Neves Valente is suspected of fatally shooting Ella Cook, 19, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, and wounding nine others during the attack on Brown’s engineering complex.
The violence stunned families across New England, including Connecticut’s academic communities in New Haven and Storrs. University safety is always on people’s minds, but this hit close to home.
Authorities also believe he killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at the professor’s home in Brookline, Massachusetts. That homicide, along with the Brown shooting, ramped up the regional search across several states, including Connecticut.
How Investigators Tracked the Suspect
Investigators relied a lot on the rented gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates that Neves Valente picked up in Boston. Rental records and license-plate cameras helped law enforcement agencies from Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire track his movements.
One particularly odd break came from the online world. It’s wild how modern investigations now reach far beyond roads and cameras.
Anonymous Reddit Tip Proves Critical
Authorities say a crucial tip came from an anonymous Reddit user who reported suspicious behavior. That user even interacted directly with the suspect before the shooting.
That online exchange, along with other investigative tools, helped police narrow their search and connect incidents across state lines.
Unanswered Questions About His Background
While his alleged crimes are now clear, much of Neves Valente’s personal history is still a mystery. Officials say he had no current affiliation with Brown University and last lived in Miami.
He left academia in 2001. His activities between then and getting permanent U.S. residency in 2017 remain mostly unknown.
DNA recovered from shell casings at Brown University didn’t match any profiles in the national DNA database. That suggests he wasn’t previously known to law enforcement at the federal level.
Regional Impact Felt in Connecticut
Connecticut folks in places like Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, Waterbury, New Britain, Middletown, and Norwalk have seen firsthand how modern, multi-state investigations can reach right into their daily lives. Our state sits at the crossroads of transportation and law enforcement, and sometimes that puts us right in the thick of things.
Even though the suspect never actually set foot at Bradley, the airport and nearby towns still landed on the broader investigative map. It’s odd how quickly distant events can ripple into local communities.
Authorities in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut keep working together. They’re still trying to figure out what motivated Neves Valente and how he managed to cross state lines so easily.
Maybe more clues will turn up from his quick but notable brush with Connecticut during that attempted rental car drop-off. Time will tell, but for now, everyone’s watching and waiting for answers.
Here is the source article for this story: Brown shooting suspect may have planned to come to Connecticut before his death, officials say
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