The man who allegedly killed two Brown University students and an MIT physicist during a days-long shooting rampage was driven by a decades-old grudge over his own stalled scientific ambitions, investigators believe. Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, was once seen in Portugal as a gifted but egotistical young physicist.
Valente won national science competitions and impressed peers with his sharp intellect. However, friends say his trajectory changed after he graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Portugal's leading science and engineering university. When Valente moved to the United States in 2000 for a greater challenge, he found his studies at Brown University underwhelming and far from the success he had expected.
Killer's Motive Getting Clear
People who knew Valente described him as deeply egotistical, someone who believed the Ivy League institution was beneath him. According to former classmates, he dropped out after just a few months, convinced that the coursework was too easy and that the school failed to meet his expectations.
Scott Watson, a physics professor at Syracuse University who befriended Valente while they were both at Brown, told The Boston Globe that he remembers him as a troubled and complex student.
"He could be kind and gentle, though he often became frustrated — sometimes angry — about courses, professors, and living conditions," Watson recalled.
Another former Brown associate, Kamran Diba, now a professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, described Valente as resentful and bitter, calling it "sad and upsetting" that he appeared to carry so much hatred for so many years.
Investigators believe Valente may have known one of his alleged victims, acclaimed MIT physicist Nuno F.G. Loureiro, dating back more than two decades to their time studying at Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal. Authorities say Valente shot and killed Loureiro at his Boston home on Monday.
Just two days earlier, Valente also allegedly opened fire inside a classroom at Brown University, killing two students and wounding nine others.
The manhunt ended Thursday night when Valente was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a storage unit in New Hampshire.
Investigation Still On
As detectives continue to try to understand Valente's actual motive, they have been investigating his past connections to the two locations tied to last week's deadly shootings. Since he was named a suspect, a clearer picture of Valente's life has emerged.
Those familiar with his history describe him as a bright student who became scornful when his scientific ambitions failed to materialize.
Authorities say Valente and Loureiro were classmates at a university in Lisbon in the late 1990s.
Their paths, however, diverged sharply. Loureiro went on to become an acclaimed physicist, earning praise for his work in nuclear physics at several institutions, while Valente left little impression and was largely forgotten by those who studied alongside him.
Law enforcement officials said that Valente won a place in an Australian physics program in 1995 after competing in a national physics Olympiad the previous year. After graduating from Instituto Superior Técnico, he moved to the United States to pursue his career, arriving on an F-1 student visa in 2000 and later becoming a lawful permanent resident in 2017.
Despite having studied at Brown University in the early 2000s, the current Brown President Christina Paxson said in an email to staff and students this week that no current faculty members recall Valente.
