The suspect in the Brown University shooting was found after police received a tip referencing a post on the social media platform Reddit, they have revealed.
Two students, Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, were killed and nine were injured during the shooting inside a classroom building at the Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday.
Frustration had mounted in Providence that the murderer had managed to get away and that a clear image of his face hadn’t emerged – until a Reddit post finally put police on the trail of the suspect later identified as Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48.
In the post on the social media platform, a witness said he saw the suspect opening a grey Nissan sedan with Florida plates parked behind the Rhode Island Historical Society, just down the road from the Barus and Holley building where the shooting happened.
“I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental,” the poster wrote, according to an affidavit seen by Sky News.
Police subsequently found the grey Nissan in CCTV footage.
Officers said the information provided by the Reddit poster “was consistent with and corroborated” the earlier CCTV footage of the suspect – wearing a face covering – encountering another man less than two hours before the shooting, so they released still images of the second man identify him.
“We had that picture of that second individual, and within an hour, no more than two, that person came forward to two Providence police officers. He blew this case right open,” Rhode Island’s attorney general Peter Neronha said during a news conference on Thursday.
“When you crack it, you crack it,” he added.
‘A game of cat and mouse’
The witness, given the pseudonym John in the affidavit, said he first saw the masked suspect in toilets inside the Barus and Holley building at around 1.45pm, before the shooting. John said he made eye contact with the suspect.
John said the suspect left the building, after which “a game of cat and mouse” began between them as John followed the suspect around the area, including to the parking spot of the grey Nissan.
John approached the car and saw “two fanny style bags on the rear floorboard on the passenger side”.
He continued to follow the suspect, who eventually started to run away from John.
When John caught up with the man, he asked him why he was “circling the block”. The suspect did not reply, instead accusing John of “harassing” him.
Identifying rental car was key
John said he saw the suspect approach the grey Nissan one more time before walking away.
The shooting inside the Barus and Holley building happened less than two hours later.
The car seen on footage located due to John’s Reddit post led detectives to a car rental company in Boston, Massachusetts, where officers secured video footage showing the suspect’s face and a rental document identifying the suspect as Neves Valente. John later identified the vehicle in CCTV images.
Police also matched the clothes Neves Valente was seen wearing at the car rental office on 1 December to those worn by the suspect on the day of the shooting on 13 December.
Neves Valente was seen wearing a two-tone lighter jacket with the same colour combination and design as the subject, the same or similar black shoes with dark soles, black trousers, a blue shirt poking out from below his jacket, and glasses.
Suspect ‘killed another man’
Police said earlier that they were also investigating a possible link between the Brown University shooting suspect and the murder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, two days later in a town 50 miles north of Boston.
Mr Loureiro was found dead with gunshot wounds on Monday evening.
Officials confirmed the link in the latest news conference. “On 15 December, he murdered Nuno Loureiro at Loureiro’s home in Brookline, Massachusetts,” Leah B. Foley, US attorney for the district of Massachusetts, said.
Neves Valente attended the same academic programme as Mr Loureiro at a university in Lisbon, Portugal, between 1995 and 2000, according to Ms Foley.
How police found suspect’s body
After leaving Rhode Island for Massachusetts, Neves Valente put a Maine number plate over the rental car’s plate to help conceal his identity.
CCTV footage showed Neves Valente entering a flat building near Mr Loureiro’s.
About one hour later, he was seen entering the storage facility in New Hampshire where he was found dead, Ms Foley said.
When Neves Valente’s body was discovered, police also found “a satchel, with two firearms and evidence in the car that matches exactly what we see at the scene here in Providence”, Mr Neronha said.
“[John] led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, that matched the satchel,” Mr Neronha added.
But there are still “a lot of unknowns” regarding the motive, Mr Neronha said, adding: “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom.”
It was unclear whether John would receive the $50,000 reward the FBI had offered for information about the Brown shooting.
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Ted Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI, said it was possible when asked by reporters.
“It would be logical to think that, absolutely, that individual would be entitled to that,” he said.
