(NewsNation) — Providence, Rhode Island, police are searching for the motive of the gunman believed responsible for the Brown University school shooting and the separate killing of an MIT professor.
Officials identified the suspect as Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national who was issued a green card in 2017.
The 48-year-old was found dead inside a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, ending a six-day, interstate manhunt and leaving questions behind.
What was the shooter’s motive?
Police are investigating Neves Valente’s motive in the school shooting and the professor’s killing.
Authorities have said Neves Valente was the gunman behind the Brown University school shooting that left two dead and nine injured, as well as the killing of an MIT professor.
Officials said he eluded detection by switching license plates, using specialized phones and SIM cards designed to block tracking.
An autopsy on Friday revealed that Neves Valente took his own life on Tuesday. That is the same day the MIT professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, died at the hospital.
The break in the case came from a Reddit tipster known as John, who spotted the suspect acting suspiciously and then reported his rental car.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley spoke Friday with NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas about connecting those dots.
“We have these disparate pieces of a puzzle that the witness who then came forward helped put all of these pieces together for us in a way such that the pictures suddenly became clear,” Smiley said. “From the moment he came in to us, discovering the individual who had taken his own life last night was about 24 hours. It moved fast from then.”
Neves Valente was a former graduate student at Brown University. Officials said it is likely he targeted the buildings where he had taken many of his classes.
The investigation also revealed the connection to the MIT professor. For five years, the two studied in the same academic program in Portugal, both graduating at the top of their class.