A longtime Brown University custodian says he repeatedly warned campus security about a man behaving suspiciously in school hallways weeks before the shooting that left two students dead, according to a new report.
Derek Lisi, who has worked at the Ivy League school for 15 years, told The Boston Globe he noticed Claudio Neves Valente pacing hallways and peering into classrooms nearly a dozen times before the Dec. 13 attack.
Lisi said he told the same security guard on two separate occasions about the man lingering in the same campus building in the days leading up to the shooting, though it remains unclear whether any action was taken.
"He'd been casing that place for weeks,'' Lisi told the news outlet, saying the man was looking into classrooms and "circling the hallways.
"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.''
Lisi said he trusted his instincts and felt compelled to speak up.
"I said, 'Something's off with this guy, so I gotta say something,'" he said.
Authorities say Neves Valente, who was a Brown graduate student in the early 2000s, opened fire inside a campus lecture hall, killing two students. Two days later, he allegedly shot and killed MIT professor Nuno Loureiro at the professor's home roughly 50 miles away.
Neves Valente was found shot to death Thursday night. His death has been ruled a suicide.
Investigators have not publicly identified a motive. But former friends and classmates told the Globe that Neves Valente harbored resentment toward Brown, criticizing everything from the campus food to what he viewed as a lack of academic rigor.
They also said he clashed academically with Loureiro years earlier, earning higher grades but failing to achieve professional success while Loureiro went on to a prominent career.
Newsmax has reached out to Brown for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.