Last week, Nuno Loureiro, the acclaimed theoretical physicist and director of the Center for Plasma Science and Fusion at MIT, was murdered in his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Investigators have since made several breakthroughs in the unusual case, linking the primary suspect to another fatal mass shooting at Brown University in early December.
Suspected gunman Claudio Neves Valente was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit Thursday after a six-day manhunt. But as the bizarre twists and turns in the case mount, investigators and the victim’s surviving relatives are left with more questions than answers.
as wall street journal Neves Valente, a physics graduate from Portugal, had a reputation for being difficult in class, although he was fondly remembered by others, reports reported over the weekend.
Perhaps most puzzlingly, Neves Valente attended the same school as his future victim Loureiro, the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, where they were students from 1995 to 2000. CNN Confirmed. Neves Valente ended up attending graduate school at Brown University, connecting him to the second institution where he allegedly committed the fatal shooting.
Scott Watson, a former Brown physics professor who spent a lot of time with Neves Valente at Brown, said he sometimes felt “angry” about life at Brown in esoteric ways — complaining, for example, about the quality of the fish he ate.
“He would say the courses were too easy — too easy for him, to be honest. He already knew most of them, and it was really impressive,” Watson told The New York Times. Associated Press.
Neves Valente left Brown University in early 2001 and returned to Portugal to work for a telecommunications company.
Classmates said he might have been jealous of Loureiro’s stellar career.
About an hour before Neves Valente opened fire on students in a Brown University lecture hall, a witness reportedly noticed he was wearing a mask and scanty clothing, leading to an argument. wall street journal.
“Why are you harassing me?” he angrily told the witness after being followed and questioned.
In total, Neves Valente killed three people and wounded nine others.
It’s a tragic story that still leaves many unanswered questions. Why did Neves Valente single out his former classmate? Does he have more desires to hurt others?
“Claudio is clearly one of the best, but in class he has a great need to stand out and show that he is better than the others,” former classmate Felipe Mora wrote in a Facebook post, as quoted CNN.
“I didn’t expect him to do something like this,” he added.
More on the murder: MIT fusion physicist murdered in home
