A homeless individual on Reddit played a pivotal role in guiding police to the Brown University shooter, engaging in a tense ‘cat and mouse’ exchange with the suspect, as detailed in an affidavit.
Referred to as ‘John,’ this informant was highlighted by authorities as a key person of interest due to his proximity to the shooter, according to statements made to the Daily Mail.
Hours before the tragic incident, John had an encounter with gunman Claudio Neves Valente in the engineering building’s restroom, as noted in the police affidavit. John observed that Neves Valente’s attire was unsuitable for the weather conditions.
Later, John saw Neves Valente again, just a short distance from the building. The gunman abruptly turned away from his Nissan upon spotting John, as the informant recounted.
Their interactions culminated in a dangerous ‘cat and mouse’ scenario, with Neves Valente evading John each time they crossed paths, according to John’s account.
At one point, John challenged the suspect, shouting, “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?”
Neves Valente responded ‘I don’t know you from nobody’ and then repeatedly asked John, “Why are you harassing me?”‘ according to the affidavit.
John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approach the Nissan sedan once more and decided to walk away.
This is John, the homeless Reddit user who led police to the Brown University shooter Claudio Neves Valente. John had several encounters with Neves Valente before Saturday’s attack
Claudio Neves Valente, 48, (pictured) a former Brown University student and Portuguese national, was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police believe he is responsible for the Brown shooting and murder of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro
As police posted images of a person of interest – now identified as Neves Valente – John began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person.
He theorized that police should look into ‘possibly a rental’ grey Nissan. Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he did.
‘I’m being dead serious,’ John’s Reddit post said. ‘The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental.’
‘I know because he used his key fob to open the car, approached it and then something prompted him to back away,’ he wrote.
‘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.’
Police learned about the tip on December 16, three days after the shooting and a day after the tip line was created, the affidavit said.
Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.
That detail led them to get more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida plates and enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.
It also helped them identify Neves Valente as the person responsible for gunning down Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro.
‘He blew this case right open,’ said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha of John. ‘When you crack it, you crack it.’
John, in a Reddit post Wednesday night, wrote: ‘Respectfully, I have said all I have to say on the matter to the right people.’
Investigators believe Neves Valente killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro (pictured) in his Massachusetts home two days after he carried out the Brown University mass shooting
This is John’s Reddit post, which police said led to the break in the case
Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national, was found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Investigators believe he is responsible for fatally shooting two students and wounding nine other people in a Brown University lecture hall last Saturday.
He then killed Loureiro, who was also Portuguese, two days later at his Brookline, Massachusetts home, nearly 50 miles from Providence.
As far as investigators know, Neves Valente acted alone.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled there as a graduate student studying physics from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001.
‘He has no current affiliation with the university,’ she said.
Neves Valente and Loureiro – who is also Portuguese – previously attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.
Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s premier engineering school, in 2000, according to his MIT faculty page.
The same year, Neves Valente was let go from a position at the Lisbon university, according to an archive of a termination notice from the school´s then-president in February 2000.
Neves Valente studied at Brown on a student visa. He eventually obtained legal permanent residence status in September 2017.
It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017. His last known residence was in Miami.
After officials revealed the suspect’s identity, President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program that allowed Neves Valente to stay in the United States.
