How investigators zeroed in on the Brown University shooting suspect and linked him to the killing of an MIT professor

Five days after an extensive manhunt began, law enforcement closed in on the Brown University shooting suspect after the emergence of apparent ties between the attack Saturday at the Providence, Rhode Island, school and the killing two days later of an MIT professor at his Massachusetts home.

As investigators began looking into the Monday shooting at the professor’s home, the FBI initially said there was no known connection between that crime and the mass shooting at the Ivy League institution about 50 miles away. But a rental car may have provided investigators with a potential link – a breakthrough that led to a search inside a New Hampshire storage facility, where authorities said Thursday night the suspect was found dead.

“Tonight, our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said at a news conference late Thursday, where officials identified the suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, a former Brown University student and a Portuguese national with no criminal record in the US. Authorities believe he acted alone, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar L. Perez Jr. said.

Nuno Loureiro, the MIT professor fatally shot at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, was also a Portuguese national, and FBI Special Agent Ted Docks said Thursday night authorities believe the two men attended school in Lisbon at the same time.

At a separate news conference Thursday, US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Leah Foley, said Neves Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.

Indeed, school records show the suspect attended the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, in the 1990s at the same time as Loureiro.

Investigators believe the suspect specifically targeted Loureiro, one law enforcement official told CNN. But they do not currently believe the two people killed at Brown – where the suspect was a student in the early 2000s – were direct targets. Police said they were still working to determine a motive for the university shooting, which came as students were busy studying for final exams.

Court documents released Thursday revealed apparently ominous sightings of the suspect in the Barus & Holley building, where the shooting took place, multiple times in the weeks prior to the attack. A campus custodian noticed a person – wearing a surgical mask and whose clothing matched that of the individual seen in surveillance video released by police – at least twice since November 28, the affidavit said. The sightings happened between 3 p.m. and sunset, investigators said in the document.

According to another law enforcement source, investigators talked with a member of the Brown University maintenance staff, who saw a suspicious person inside the Barus & Holley building after hours the night before the shooting.

The maintenance worker followed the person, who went outside and got into a vehicle. The worker wrote down the vehicle’s license plate number but did not immediately report the incident because it was unclear whether the person had broken into the building or taken anything, the official said.

After the shooting, however, the Brown maintenance worker shared the information with others, who brought it to the attention of Providence police. They, along with the FBI and other agencies, then started looking into the license plate number.

The car linked to the license plate had been rented days prior at Boston Logan International Airport, law enforcement officials said, by an individual who was believed to be a man from Portugal and a legal permanent resident of the US living in Florida.

Investigators believe, at some point, the license plate on the car was switched with other plates to avoid detection from license plate readers.

Another tip came from someone who reported seeing an individual at a rental car outlet who the tipster believed matched the person seen in footage released by police on Wednesday, a law enforcement official told CNN.

Investigators visited the rental car company and obtained surveillance video showing a person renting the car who appeared to match the person seen in the footage released by police, including his distinctive gait, the official said.

Investigators believe that after renting the car in Boston, Neves Valente then drove to Providence, where the vehicle was seen in the area of the Brown shooting, Foley said. Within 24 hours of the shooting, Neves Valente returned to Massachusetts and put an unregistered license plate from Maine on the vehicle before killing the professor on Monday, Foley added.

The rental car was just one piece of data investigators used to link the Brown shooting suspect to the fatal shooting of the MIT professor. A financial probe, a storage unit and extensive security footage also helped police connect the dots in the 48 hours before his body was found, Foley said during the Massachusetts news conference.

“There was security footage that captured him within a half mile of the professor’s residence in Brookline and there is video footage of him entering an apartment building in the location of the professor’s apartment,” she said.

Around an hour later, Neves Valente was seen entering a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, wearing the same clothes he’d been seen wearing right after the professor was shot, Foley said.

It was several days before investigators were able to connect the crimes because the suspect is believed to have used an untraceable phone and avoided credit cards in his own name, Foley said. Investigators think he used European SIM cards for cell service, making it difficult to track his location in real time.

On Thursday in Boston, the FBI had set up surveillance at the rental car return location at Logan Airport because the individual who rented the car was booked on an outgoing flight Thursday. Law enforcement agencies were also deployed in Florida as the search for the man began.

But by late Thursday, authorities were swarming the storage facility in Salem, some 30 miles north of Boston, after finding an abandoned car with a license plate that matched one of those believed to have been used by the suspect. A license plate reader flagged one of the license plates that matched the car the suspect was driving.

When officials found Neves Valente dead, they also found a satchel and two firearms, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said at Thursday night’s news conference.

While investigators believe they’ve identified the gunman in both cases, there are lingering questions to answer, like why he opened fire on students at a school he attended more than two decades ago and why a former classmate was apparently targeted nearly 30 years after they were in the same academic program.