On Thursday, law enforcement authorities found Claudio Neves-Valente — the suspected murderer of Ella Cobbs Cook, a 19-year-old Brown University student from Mountain Brook — dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Multiple media reports described Valente, 48, as a non-citizen from Portugal who was a legal permanent resident.
BREAKING: Authorities have identified the suspect in Saturday's mass shooting at Brown University as Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente.
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 19, 2025
The 48-year-old was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a New Hampshire storage facility. pic.twitter.com/TA4m7M6qNf
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez stated during a Thursday night press conference that Valente took his own life at a storage facility in New Hampshire. Valente was a graduate student at Brown University in the early 2000s.
Investigators believe Valente is responsible for the shooting at Brown on Saturday and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was fatally shot on Monday, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
Law enforcement authorities didn't state what Valente's motives were behind the killings.
“This was a highly dangerous individual capable of extreme violence,” Tom Greco, special agent-in-charge of ATF Boston, said at the press conference.
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