A Brown University custodian reported suspicious activity by Claudio Neves Valente, who was seen “circling” hallways and peering into classrooms in the weeks leading up to his mass shooting. According to the New York Post, the custodian, Derek Lisi, who has worked at Brown for 15 years, told the Boston Globe that he could tell something was off about the man before the attack in a lecture hall, which killed two students on December 13.
Lisi said he alerted campus security twice about the suspicious person around the Barus and Holley building—first in mid-November and again on December 1—though it remains unclear whether any action was taken by the guard or by Brown officials. “He’d been casing that place for weeks,” looking into classrooms and “circling the hallways,” Lisi said. “I thought it was someone trying to steal something. Every time he saw me, I think he thought I was security, because he would always walk away.”
Brown officials did not respond to requests for comment. The guard involved appears to be employed by a private security firm contracted by the university, which also did not comment. Federal court documents previously indicated that a Brown custodian noticed a suspicious person in the targeted building weeks before the shooting; the individual matched Neves Valente’s physical appearance, according to the records. “I knew it was him because I could tell by the walk,” Lisi told the Globe, describing the killer’s distinctive stride.
Neves Valente, a former Brown graduate student from the early 2000s, later killed an MIT professor, Nunu Loureiro, at the professor’s home about 50 miles away. The gunman died by suicide on Thursday night. Authorities have not publicly disclosed a clear motive. Former friends and classmates have suggested he harbored disdain for Brown, criticizing everything from its food to the perceived lack of academic intensity, and had clashed with Loureiro academically in the past.