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Two Young Physicists Seemed Destined for Greatness. Two Decades Later, One Shot the Other Dead.
WSJ ^ | December 19, 2025 | Jared Mitovich, Neil Mehta , Deborah Acosta, Douglas Belkin

Posted on 12/21/2025 6:42:25 AM PST by Red Badger

Claudio Neves Valente, the suspect in the Brown and MIT shootings, had flashes of temper; former classmates describe him as confrontational and socially awkward

Twenty-five years ago, two promising physicists graduated from a prestigious science university in Lisbon. On Monday, one gunned the other down at his home outside Boston after firing on a classroom of Brown University undergrads, authorities say.

Claudio Neves Valente, the suspected shooter, once had a bright future. He graduated at the top of his college class, ahead of classmate Nuno Loureiro. But by the time Neves Valente confronted Loureiro at his Brookline, Mass., apartment building this past week, Loureiro’s career had soared while Neves Valente’s withered.

Loureiro was an acclaimed nuclear scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leading one of its largest labs. Neves Valente had been living in an unassuming home in Miami, far from the academic grandeur for which he’d once seemed destined.

Investigators don’t know why Neves Valente opened fire in the Brown classroom, nor what drove him to target Loureiro. After a six-day manhunt, police found Neves Valente dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage unit in New Hampshire Thursday night.

“I don’t think we have any idea why now, or why Brown, why these students, why this classroom. That is really unknown to us,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha at a press briefing.

Neves Valente was born in the Portuguese town of Torres Novas, about 70 miles north of Lisbon. As a teenager, he was selected to represent Portugal at the International Physics Olympiad, according to the Portugal Physics Gazette. The wife of one of his teachers told local media that the teacher considered him his best student.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: 2convenient; banglist; brownuniversity; claudionevesvalente; crime; education; nevesvalente; nuclearscientists; physics; valente
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To: Reily
Has there been any credible information on how the shooter lived in the Miami area? What he did for those 8(?) years?

Neither media nor authorities have released anything yet. He apparently kept a low profile and had no encounters with law enforcement. Information will come out; we need to be cautious of the budding conspiracy fantasies sure to invade the net real soon.

41 posted on 12/21/2025 11:43:03 AM PST by gloryblaze
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Feynmann was an interesting guy but he also seems to have been a bit of a jerk. There are all sorts of rumors about his time at CalTech regarding his treatment of students and their wives. I’ve heard from several people that if Feynmann wanted to sleep with your wife that was a condition to get through the program. Hear it once you can dismiss, hear it three times from three different people with variations in the tale you scratch your chin and go hmmm.


42 posted on 12/21/2025 12:23:01 PM PST by Reily
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To: Reily

What he did for those 8(?) years?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lots of questions and I’m just as curious as to why he went back to Portugal, what did he do there for 14 years (2003 to 2017) and what brought him back to Miami?


43 posted on 12/21/2025 12:57:40 PM PST by hecticskeptic
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To: Reily

I hadn’t heard any of that, but it is not inconsistent with his character, I suppose. Carl Sagan was a skirt chaser, but not one to resort to extortion.


44 posted on 12/21/2025 1:49:05 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets ( )
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To: Presbyterian Reporter

It seems to me the whereabouts of the shooter from 2017 to 2025 has been totally scrubbed.

1. Where was he working 2017-2025
2. Where did he live 2017-2025
3. Where did he get his money to live on 2017-2025

And a myriad of other questions regarding his whereabouts and livlihood.
*******************************************************************

It hasn’t been “scrubbed” because it hasn’t been “out there”. I’m certain that the investigators will be doing all they can to fill in those gaps… or at least they should be doing that. Just IMHO, of course.

I’ll be looking for them to fill out that gap of time. I suspect it will be a time of self-perceived failures for the perp.


45 posted on 12/21/2025 6:37:45 PM PST by House Atreides (I’m now ULTRA-MAGA-PRO-MAX)
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To: Sacajaweau

All your questions are very good and should be pursued.


46 posted on 12/21/2025 6:39:10 PM PST by House Atreides (I’m now ULTRA-MAGA-PRO-MAX)
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To: Red Badger
He said that the top men in the class usually made horrible techs, and the middle level guys made the best ones.

Like the old joke, attributed to various schools, of the elderly university president, giving advice to the much younger man replacing him:

“Be nice to the straight A+ students, because in ten years they will be on our faculty. “

“Be even nicer to the straight C+ students, because in thirty years they will give us multi million dollar donations.”

47 posted on 12/21/2025 7:23:10 PM PST by Pilsner
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To: gloryblaze

I’m just getting tired of all these foreign, subhumans, bringing their wars and battles to MY HOME, AMERICA, to fight them. Maybe it’s time for Americans to start getting involved is their crap and start dusting a few of them until they get the hint that they should fight their private battles in THEIR OWN SEPTIC TANKS. We’re not interested.


48 posted on 12/22/2025 4:49:42 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Freedom isn' FREE. Neither is Socialism. Somebody has to pay the tab for the freeloaders invaders.)
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