BREAKING: Brown U. shooter, linked MIT professor murder, found dead in storage facility by suicide

A split image shows Claudio Neves-Valente, wearing the same jacket as a man identified earlier as a person of interest in the case. (Providence Police Department)

Authorities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts announced late Thursday that the manhunt for the gunman responsible for last Saturday's deadly shooting at Brown University, and the subsequent murder of an MIT nuclear physics professor, has come to a grim end. 

The suspect, identified as 48-year-old Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, was found dead in a Salem, New Hampshire storage unit from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Providence police named Neves-Valente as the shooter who killed two students and wounded nine others during a finals-week economics review session in the Barus and Holley Building on Brown's campus.

Neves-Valente had a brief and troubled history at Brown, enrolling as a physics Ph.D. student in fall 2000 before taking a leave of absence and withdrawing in 2003, according to university president Christina Paxson.

"I think it's safe to assume that this man, when he was a student, spent a great deal of time in that building for classes and other activities as a Ph.D. student in physics," Paxson said. "He has no current active affiliation with the university or campus presence."

The building, which houses physics and engineering departments, was the site of the attack around 4 p.m. on December 13. 

Investigators later connected Neves-Valente to the fatal shooting of MIT professor Nuno Loureiro at his Brookline home on Monday, about 50 miles from Providence. Both men had attended Portugal's Instituto Superior Técnico around the same time, with Neves-Valente reportedly terminated from a monitor position there in 2000.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah B. Foley confirmed the link in a separate briefing: "This evening at approximately 9 p.m., federal agents breached a storage locker in Salem, New Hampshire, in search of Claudio Neves-Valente, a Portuguese national we believed shot and killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts," she told reporters in a separate news briefing. "Federal agents found Neves-Valente dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

A split image showing multiple still frames from the surveillance video taken near Brown University of a person of interest before and after a school shooting Saturday. (FBI Boston) Early leads included surveillance footage of a stocky, masked figure with a distinctive gait, as noted by body language expert Susan Constantine. Police also briefly questioned and cleared another individual.

The victims killed at Brown were Ella Cook of Alabama and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov of Virginia. Six survivors remained hospitalized in stable condition as of Thursday.The case broke open thanks to tips on a rental car seen near campus, leading to images of Neves-Valente and eventually the New Hampshire storage unit.

With the suspect dead, questions about motive linger, and the investigation continues. The communities around both elite institutions, already on edge after the attacks, can at least breathe a sigh of relief that the immediate threat has ended.

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Pam Bondi has 3 arrested for "domestic terrorism" in cases against Tesla

In a robust display of law and order, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi has thrown down the gauntlet, announcing on Thursday that three miscreants now face charges for their audacious assaults on Tesla properties across the nation. This is not a mere slap on the wrist; it’s a resounding crack of the whip.

“The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,” Bondi declared with steely resolve in her statement. And she’s not mincing words: “Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.” No equivocation, no pandering—just the cold, hard promise of justice.

The statement lays out the stakes with stark clarity: these three, should they be convicted, will face a mandatory minimum of five years in the clink, with the prospect of two decades behind bars looming large. This is not a game for the faint-hearted; it’s a serious reckoning for those who thought they could wreak havoc and saunter away unscathed. Bondi’s message is unmistakable: the rule of law still has teeth, and it’s ready to bite.

The statement didn't identify the arrestees but gave a brief synopsis of each case. The cases detailed in the statement appeared to match cases announced in recent days and weeks by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On the first defendant mentioned, the DOJ said:

One defendant, also armed with a suppressed AR-15 rifle, was arrested after throwing approximately eight Molotov cocktails at a Tesla dealership located in Salem, Oregon.

The case appears to be a reference to Adam Matthew Lansky, 41, who was arrested for allegedly “throwing Molotov cocktails at a local car dealership” and allegedly firing “multiple firearm rounds into a building and at least one vehicle,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon.

On the second defendant, the DOJ said:

Another was arrested in Loveland, Colorado after attempting to light Teslas on fire with Molotov cocktails. The defendant was later found in possession of materials used to produce additional incendiary weapons.

The case appears to be a match to Justin Thomas Nelson, 42, who the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado says was arrested on “one count of malicious destruction of property for a series of incidents at the Tesla dealership in Loveland, Colorado.”

On the final defendant mentioned, the DOJ said:

In Charleston, South Carolina, a third defendant wrote profane messages against President Trump around Tesla charging stations before lighting the charging stations on fire with Molotov cocktails.

The case appears to be a match for a case out of the USAO’s District of South Carolina against Daniel Clarke-Pounder, 24, who was arrested “on criminal charges related to an arson at a North Charleston Tesla charging station.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the arrests with a post on X that said, “The hammer of justice strikes.”

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