Investigators look at a grey Nissan car at a storage facility where the Brown University shooter, identified by authorities as Claudio Neves Valente, took his own life, in Salem, New Hampshire, US, December 18, 2025. © REUTERS/CJ Gunther
(Providence, RI) – It sounds like a homeless man may have cracked the case. Known only as “John” in public reports, he was living in the basement of a building at Brown University when the deadly mass shooting unfolded last Saturday. Now, he may be entitled to a $50,000 reward — as John helped catch 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente — the man who allegedly gunned down two students on Brown’s campus in Providence, as well as an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Reports say a Reddit post helped solve the case, because John started posting about his interaction with the suspected shooter. According to court documents, he shared a post on the website that reads: “I’m being dead serious. 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 recounted.
The entire situation seemed off to John. He said the suspected shooter “backed away, (then) 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.” This information was critical for a case that had seemingly gone cold. Cops and federal agents had no good leads before this all came to light from John.
“He blew this case right open,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said while offering up praise for the tipster. FBI Special Agent in Charge Ted Docks made it sound as though “John” could get the $50,000 reward: “It would be logical to think that, absolutely, that individual would be entitled to that.”
John’s sleuthing work started before the interaction at the car and bizarre locking-unlocking. He spoke to cops after they put out images of the suspect — as well as John — listing him as a potential “person of interest.” John told cops he had a bizarre “cat and mouse” interaction with the shooter the day it happened. He said Neves Valente (the suspect) was in a bathroom at Brown’s engineering building hours before the gunfire — the building where “John” has been living in the basement.
John also found it weird that Neves Valente was wearing clothing that was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather.” Reports have since come to light that the suspected shooter lived in Florida. Fox News — citing sources — was the outlet that has reported John lives in the basement.
The tipster who cracked the case says after the bathroom interaction, he bumped into Neves Valente outside the building — and decided to follow him. “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?” John says he queried the suspect. To that, the suspect said “‘I don’t know you from nobody,’ then Suspect repeatedly asked, ’Why are you harassing me?’” — per court documents.
From there, cops looked at additional surveillance footage, searching for the car in question. That led them to the gunman, who was eventually found at a New Hampshire storage unit — dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. That happened around 24-hours after John’s information was shared. “When you crack it, you crack it,” Attorney General Neronha said.
Sadly, John’s detective work was unable to stop the suspected shooter from also killing MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, who may have known his assailant — in Portugal. That crime happened at Loureiro’s home in Brookline. At Brown University, 19-year-old Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov were shot dead. Over a dozen were injured in the Providence shooting.
