How a Reddit Post Helped Find the Brown University Shooting Suspect

After a flurry of media speculation Thursday, police found the body of 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente in a New Hampshire storage facility, dead from an apparent suicide. Neves Valente is the suspect in the Dec. 13 Brown University mass shooting that killed two students and wounded 9 more, as well as the murder of an MIT professor on Monday. And law enforcement says a post on Reddit helped find the killer.

The FBI released screenshots from a security camera on Monday that were then posted to r/Providence, the subreddit for people to discuss anything related to Providence, Rhode Island. Reddit user lamin_kaare wrote that police should be looking for a grey Nissan with Florida plates, noting that the user saw someone who was acting strangely in the area.

The Reddit post:

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.

Other commenters encouraged the user to go to the police, with one writing, “I think you’re on to something.” The OP’s response: “Thank you and respectfully I know I am. There was nothing subtle about the way he retreated from his car and I am glad I approached and saw the Florida license plate.”

The OP wasn’t the first person to contact the police and point them to the Reddit post. An anonymous source made the call first, according to an affidavit posted online by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha.

Police checked security camera footage from the Rhode Island Historical Society, which showed the Nissan and the Florida plate. And the fact that this information wasn’t publicly available convinced police that whoever wrote the Reddit post may have found the suspect.

The original Reddit poster, identified only as John in the affidavit, contacted police the next day and came in for an interview. He told them about his odd encounter with the suspect, noting that he was acting suspiciously by not having appropriate cold-weather clothes on when he saw him in a bathroom at Brown University. That was two hours before the shooting. After spotting him in the bathroom wearing a mask, John actually started following the suspect in what he called a “game of cat and mouse.”

From the affidavit:

JohnthendescribedanencounterwiththeSuspectneartheRI Historical Society.HewatchedtheSuspect approachagreyorsilversedanbearingaFloridaregistrationplate.Johnassumedthe Suspect hadakeyfob becausethelightsoftheNissan litupastheSuspectapproached,asifthevehiclewasbeingunlockedbyakey fob.TheSuspectsuddenlyturnedaroundfromthevehicleandwalkedintheopposite direction, takingaleftat thenearbyintersection.Johnstatedthatthe Suspect “lookedat[him] likeheknew[him.] ”Johnapproachedthe sedanandobservedtwofannypackstylebagsontherear floorboard onthepassengerside.Johnremainedonthat blockandobservedtheSuspectloopingbacktothearea,thenswitching directions everytimetheysaweach other.

After losing the suspect for a bit, John spotted him again:

Johnthenranupbehindthepersonofinterest,slowedtoa speed-walk andwalkedpasttheSuspect. JohnthenturnedtofacetheSuspect.Johnestimatesthattheywerestanding approximately twofeetawayfrom eachother.JohnaskedtheSuspect, “Yourcarisbackthere,whyare you circlingtheblock?” TheSuspect responded, “Idon’tknowyoufrom nobody,”thenSuspect repeatedlyasked, ‘Whyareyouharassingme?’”During this exchange, JohndetectedacadenceoraccenttotheSuspect’svoicethathebelievedtoHispanic.Johnsaw theSuspectapproachhiscaronemoretime,butthenJohn continued ontoWatermanStreetanddidnothaveany subsequentencounterswiththeSuspect.

Police detectives showed John two images obtained through Flock, the company that’s built extensive surveillance infrastructure across the U.S. used by investigators, and he recognized the suspect’s vehicle, replying, “Holy shit. That might be it,” according to the affidavit.

Police were able to track down the license plate of the rental car, which gave them a name, and within 24 hours, they had found Claudio Manuel Neves Valente dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, where he reportedly rented a unit.

Why did Neves Valente allegedly do it? That part is less clear. Originally from Portugal, he reportedly went to the same Portuguese engineering school as Nuno Loureiro, the MIT professor, in the 1990s. Loureiro was found dead in his Brookline, Massachusetts home. And while Neves Valente went to school at Brown in the early 2000s as a graduate student studying physics before dropping out, the motive for that shooting is unknown.

Peter Neronha, Attorney General of Rhode Island, said, “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom.”

Internet sleuthing is typically a disaster, especially in 2025. The internet masses become convinced they’ve discovered something, and it spirals out of control, with social media users accusing innocent people of being killers. That’s exactly what happened with the Brown University case, as X users have spent most of this week accusing various folks of being murderers.

Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist, was convinced the suspect was Muslim and posted incessantly while accusing some random student of being the shooter because he was Palestinian. Another user posted a “gait analysis” that pointed to the wrong guy as well.

But in the case of “John” from Reddit, we have something different from your average amateur internet investigation. He was allegedly actually on the scene and saw something suspicious. He posted it on Reddit, and the community encouraged him to go to the police. We don’t know if John would’ve done that if he hadn’t shared his story on an internet forum, but authorities credit his help with finding the suspect.

We may never know more about John, given the fact that he says he doesn’t want to talk with the media.

“Respectfully, I have said all I have to say on the matter to the right people,” John’s latest post reads. “If any follow up is needed the right people know how to reach out to me. Though it is certainly your right to try, any news media attempting to reach out to me will not receive a response.”