Police credit anonymous Reddit user for key tip that helped to find Brown University shooter
A tip off from a social media sleuth helped officials track down the suspect in the Brown University shooting, police in the US have revealed.
Claudio Neves Valente - a Portuguese national who previously studied at the university in Providence, Rhode Island - was found dead on Thursday (18 December) after an intensive manhunt.
The 48-year-old was discovered with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, which is roughly 80 miles north of the city where the Ivy League school is located.
He was found alongside a satchel and two firearms, authorities said.
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Police believe that Valente was behind the mass shooting that left two students dead and another nine injured last Saturday (13 December).
Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, and Ella Cook, 19 - who were described as 'brilliant and beloved' by university staff - tragically passed away after the horror incident.
Police have since revealed that they believe that Valente also killed a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuno Loureiro, 47, two days later.
Further details about the alleged gunman have been emerging since he was found dead, with Brown's President Christina Paxson revealing that he previously studied there.
He attended the university in the early 2000s as a physics student before withdrawing in 2003, she told reporters. He had 'no current active affiliation' to the university, Paxson said.
Valente was granted lawful permanent resident status in the US in 2017 after arriving in the country on a student visa, NBC News reports, while he did not have a criminal record.
And all of this information has only come to light thanks to a Reddit user - known only by the pseudonym 'John' - who police say helped them 'blow the case right open'.
Officials released a slew of videos and images of a person of interest earlier this week, which were taken just a couple of hours before the deadly shooting.
In a Reddit thread where this content was being discussed, John explained that he recognised the approximately 5ft 8ins male 'with a stocky build' who the FBI were hunting for.
In response, the social media user wrote: "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 of the 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 and 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."
After trawling through CCTV footage, cops discovered the grey Nissan with Florida license plates, which John had flagged as being suspicious, according to Sky News.
Investigators then used surveillance cameras to track the vehicle's subsequent journey, which saw the car head to a Boston suburb before later venturing on to the storage facility in Salem.
Valente had changed the plates on his car in a bid to cover his tracks, officials said.
John later told police that he had first encountered the masked man inside the bathroom facilities of the Barus and Holley building - where the shooting took place - at around 1.45pm on the day of the incident.
He said that he became alarmed after noticing that the man's clothing seemed 'inappropriate and inadequate for the weather'.
'A game of cat and mouse' then ensued, as John began to follow the alleged shooter around the area - before making note of his parking spot and inspecting the contents of his vehicle.
The Reddit user noticed 'two fanny style bags on the rear floorboard on the passenger side' and continued to follow the suspect, who eventually accused John of 'harassing' him'.
Rhode Island's attorney general Peter Neronha said at a press conference on Thursday: "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. When you crack it, you crack it.
"That person 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."
Two hours after John's encounter, shots rang out on campus.
Despite the amateur detective helping police piece together the puzzle surrounding the shooting, Neronha said there are still a 'lot of unknowns'.
"We don't know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom," he added.
Topics: Crime, Reddit, Social Media, US News
Olivia Burke