Brown University shooting suspect found dead

A suspect in the Brown University mass shooting was found dead this evening, according to Providence police chief Oscar L. Perez Jr., killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Named as Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a 48-year old former student of the Ivy League college, his body was found in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, with "evidence matching the crime scene" including a satchel and firearms.

Officials are certain he was the culprit: "Tonight our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier," Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters.

Killed in the December 13 shooting were Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov. Nine others were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. More than 400 police officers responded to the incident and a 5-day manhunt followed, hampered by the poor quality of surveillance footage and "bungling" by the FBI.

Officials are also investigating the killing of an MIT professor at his Massachusetts home, and CNN implies that law enforcement sources consider the Brown shooter a suspect in that murder. Both men are from Portugal.

A person who came to local police officers with information, Neronha said, "blew this case right open." "That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence that matched the satchel that we see here in Providence," Neronha said.

There's little information to be found about Valente; his last known address was reportedly in Miami, he was enrolled at Brown from 2000 to 2001 as a graduate student of physics, and "officials did not immediately describe a possible motive for the attack."

Students described hearing gunshots just before seeing a man in a face mask burst into the classroom and start firing. Ref Bari, a physics graduate student, said he ran out of the building when the shooting started and hid in a bathroom for hours with other fleeing strangers.

"There were rumors that the shooter was out on the street, like feet from us, and it was so terrifying," Bari told NPR's "Here and Now." He called 911 from the bathroom, and said he told police "there were gunshots behind me," only to be told by police they didn't know how many active shooters there were, and he should stay sheltered.