FBI, US Attorney Release Findings On Brown University Mass Shooting

The shooter was "driven by an accumulation of grievances that he collected throughout his life," the investigation determined.

By Joseph Hosey, Patch Staff

Apr 29, 2026 5:44 pm EDT | Updated Apr 29, 2026 6:20 pm EDT

Claudio Manuel Neves Valente was "driven by an accumulation of grievances that he collected throughout his life," the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office determined. (Courtesy of U.S. Attorney Leah Foley's office)

PROVIDENCE, RI — The bloodthirsty gunman who shot up a Brown University academic building and killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor before taking his own life was "driven by an accumulation of grievances that he collected throughout his life," the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office have determined.

The FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office on Wednesday released the results of their investigation of the Dec. 13 mass shooting and the murder of professor Nuno Loureiro two days later and revealed that the gunman, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, "appeared to struggle with how he viewed his life achievements and felt he was considerably marginalized by others."

"The shooter’s inflated sense of self contributed to interpersonal conflicts in his life and led him to believe he was being treated unjustly, preventing him from reaching his perceived full potential," the agencies said in a media release.

Neves Valente, 48, fired at least 44 shots in the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building, killing two and wounding eight others.

The targets chosen by Neves Valente, a Portuguese national and a legal permanent resident living in Miami, were "symbolic in nature" according to the release.

"Brown University as a whole and Dr. Loureiro represented to the shooter his personal failures and injustices he perceived were inflicted by others over time," the release said. "By attacking them, Neves Valente was likely able to overcome his shame and envy by using violence to punish those communities that he perceived contributed to his downfall."

Neves Valente began planning the killing spree in 2022, according to the release, the year he purchased a pair of Glock 9 mm pistols from a Florida pawn shop. One of the Glocks was used in the Brown shooting and the other to kill Loureiro.

That was also the year he acquired the Salem, New Hampshire, storage unit where the authorities found his body after he died by suicide, the release said.

After the shootings, Neves Valente made a series of audio files and short videos, some right before he took his own life, according to the Department of Justice.

"The FBI has determined that Neves Valente was committed to conducting the attack and had completed his planning," according to the release.

"He considered, planned, and prepared for the mass shooting at Brown University in increments over a period of several years in isolation, spanning multiple geographic locations," the release said. "Neves Valente’s transient lifestyle, long-term planning, and social isolation provided little to no opportunity for bystanders to observe and contextualize the significance of his behaviors. The shooter lacked traditional support, such as family, peers, and authority figures, who would have been able to observe any potential warning signs and contact law enforcement."

The FBI also put forth that Neves Valente "experienced a failure to thrive, long-standing suicidality, and his current situation was incongruent to where he felt he should be at this stage in his life."

"As his failures outweighed successes, his paranoia increased, compounding his continued inability to thrive, leading to him being mentally unwell and committed to dying," the release said. "However, mental health stressors alone cannot fully explain the attacks that occurred."

The federal agencies conceded that {only Neves Valente knew the real reason why he committed these heinous acts."

However, at this time, the FBI is confident, based on the evidence collected, the shooter’s own writings and recordings, and interviews with those who knew him best, that the above assessment is accurate," the release said.