PROVIDENCE, R.I. — For six days, Claudio Neves Valente managed to stay one step ahead of the largest manhunt in the country with counter-surveillance techniques. Valente used international SIM cards, multiple license plates, and credit cards in different names to vanish after the shooting at Brown University.
According to a 35-page Providence Police affidavit, Valente’s evasion was aided by meticulous planning. While more than 800 security cameras blanket the Brown University campus, investigators say Valente specifically targeted an older building with limited surveillance coverage.
For weeks leading up to the attack, Valente reportedly cased the campus numerous times and parked his rental vehicle beneath large trees, using the natural canopy to obscure his car from overhead and street-level cameras.
Leah Foley, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, noted that Valente was highly sophisticated in hiding his tracks. She detailed his tactics to bypass modern law enforcement technology, including the use of European SIM cards. Foley said Valente also used a type of phone that made it nearly impossible for police to “ping” his location in real-time. Valente is a legal permanent U.S. resident or green card holder from Portugal.
Valente attempted to avoid License Plate Readers by removing the front plate of his rental and covering the car’s original Florida plate with an old Maine plate in the rear. The front plate was never detected by a license plate reader, according to the affidavit, because it had been removed.
Retired Boston Police Superintendent Dan Linskey highlighted the challenge these tactics posed to investigators. “Not only was he trying to get away from the license plate readers that possibly could detect him, but also avoiding toll detectors and even just good old-fashioned police work where someone sees the car,” Linskey explained.
A law enforcement source told 25 Investigates reporter Ted Daniel that no evidence has been found to suggest Valente had any counter-surveillance training.
Valente’s undoing came from a vigilant citizen who had an encounter with Valente in the hours before the Brown shooting. That witness, identified only as a former Brown student named “John,” recognized Valente and initially posted about it on Reddit. This tip pointed investigators to a gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates.
Linskey noted that this was the breakthrough investigators needed. “All the pieces of the puzzle came together,” Linskey said. “Once they were able to positively identify a vehicle plate associated with him in the area of Providence, run that plate and find out if it’s a rental car in Boston, they were able to identify who had rented it and gather a positive identification on them pretty quickly.”
Because Valente had used his actual Florida driver’s license to rent the vehicle in Boston, investigators were able to determine his identity. Once identified, the manhunt converged on a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, where Valente was eventually found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Even DNA from a spent shell casing offered no initial help, as Valente’s lack of a criminal record meant his profile was not in the national CODIS database. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha emphasized that the difficulty in locating Valente stemmed from the fact that he “knew what he was doing.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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