Claudio Neves Valente: Reddit post helped track down Brown University shooting suspect; here’s how

Claudio Neves Valente was identified as the suspected Brown University shooter, who killed two and left nine injured.

Claudio Neves Valente was identified as the suspected Brown University shooter, who killed two and left nine injured. The 48-year-old Portuguese national died of a self-inflicted bullet wound today as authorities surrounded a storage facility in Salem, where he’d been tracked. After the shooting in Providence, Rhode Island, Valente made his way over to Brookline, where he shot MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, who died the next day of his injuries.

 Claudio Neves Valente, suspect in the Brown University shooting in Providence, Rhode Island, picks up a vehicle at an Alamo Rent a Car in this frame grab from CCTV released in an affidavit by the Providence Police December 18, 2025. (via REUTERS)

Authorities were only able to track down Valente as the manhunt entered the sixth day, and they’ve shared that the shooter took a lot of steps like swapping out number plates, making himself unidentifiable, and more, to evade the law. However, authorities had help from an unlikely source that aided in closing in on Valente. It came from Reddit!

Also Read | ‘What’s the motive’: Brown shooting suspect Claudio Neves Valente’s Portugal link sparks concerns

The Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha shared an affidavit where it is noted “On December 16, 2025, the tip command center received information from an anonymous source referencing a Reddit post from the Providence sub-Reddit.” The username of the person is redacted. “The then anonymous tipster stated the Reddit poster said they saw the suspected shooter walking in the area. Investigators obtained a copy of the Reddit post,” the post added.

They noted that the Reddit post said “I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. That was the car he was driving. It was parked in front ofthe little shack behind the Rhode Island Historical Society on the Cooke St side. I know because he used his key fob to open the car, approached it and then something prompted him to back away. When he backed away he relocked the car. I found that odd so when he circled the block I approached the car that is when I saw the Florida plates. He was parked in the section between the gate of the RIHS and the corner of Cooke and George St.”