By Gabe Whisnant
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The man accused of killing two Brown University students and an MIT professor mentioned President Donald Trump in a confessional video and had been planning the attack for at least six semesters, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Why it Matters
Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown graduate student and Portuguese national, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility after a six-day manhunt. Authorities say Valente opened fire on a study group inside Brown’s engineering building on Dec. 13, killing two students and wounding nine others. Two days later, officials said he fatally shot MIT nuclear physics professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at Loureiro’s home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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Valente and Loureiro were enrolled in the same academic program at a Portuguese university between 1995 and 2000. Loureiro graduated in 2000 from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s leading engineering school, according to his MIT faculty page. That same year, Valente was dismissed from a position at the Lisbon university, according to an archived termination notice signed by the school’s president in February 2000.
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What to Know
Justice Department officials said FBI agents recovered an electronic device from the storage unit containing a series of short videos Valente recorded after the shootings. In the recordings, made in Portuguese, Valente admitted he had been “planning the Brown University shooting for a long time,” according to a press release. He did not explain why he targeted Brown or Loureiro, whom he had known decades earlier in Portugal.
He also mentions remarks made by President Donald Trump in one of the videos.
"We're going to see what happens," Trump told reporters on December 15. "Hopefully they're going to capture this animal."
"I also have no interest in being famous. I don't give a damn about how you judge me or what you think of me. The overwhelming majority of things that are going to be said, I can already imagine. In fact, I was already reading, uhm, I particularly like Trump's sh*t, to have--have called me an animal, which is true. I am an animal and he is also, but uhm, I have no love--I have no hatred towards America, I also have no hatred at all. This was an issue of… of opportunity."
He also directly refuted false claims circulated by conservative influencer Laura Loomer that the Brown University shooter spoke Arabic and shouted “Allahu akbar” when entering the auditorium.
Valente said he does not speak Arabic and had no intention of making any statement. If he said anything, it was likely an exclamation such as “Oh no!” expressing disappointment that the room appeared empty when he walked in, he said. Students were hiding under desks, but Valente believed they had already escaped through an emergency exit.
“I never wanted to do it in an auditorium. I wanted to do it in a regular room,” he said. “I had plenty of opportunities. Especially this semester, I had plenty of opportunities, but I always chickened out.”
Valente said he felt no need to apologize and complained about injuring his eye during the attack. “I’m not going to apologize because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me,” he said in one video.
He described his goal as leaving “on my own terms” and ensuring he “wouldn’t be the one who ended up suffering the most from all this.” Valente called his execution of the killings “a little incompetent,” adding, “But at least something was done.”
In the recordings, Valente said he had rented the storage space where his body was found for about three years. He died by suicide before investigators discovered his remains.
What Happens Next
The DOJ said the investigation into a motive is ongoing.
Updates: 1/6/26, 7:43 p.m. ET: This headline and article were updated with new information and remarks.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
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