Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Nate Raymond and Brad Brooks
Updated ,first published
Providence: The suspect in the mass shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island last weekend is dead, a US attorney says, as authorities investigate whether the same person killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor two days after the rampage at the Ivy League school.
Two other federal officials also confirmed the suspected Brown shooter was dead. It is believed that his body was discovered in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, about 30 kilometres north of downtown Boston, where a large contingent of law enforcement officers descended on Thursday night (Friday AEDT) in an action related to the Brown University investigation.
One Department of Justice official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to discuss the matter, said the suspected shooter had killed himself. The sources did not provide more details on the identification of the suspect or why investigators thought the two cases might be linked. But they said that federal prosecutors in Massachusetts, where MIT is located, had drafted charges against an individual they were seeking in the investigation.
The manhunt since Saturday’s shooting inside a classroom building at Brown University had left students and residents of Providence, Rhode Island, “restless and eager” for an arrest, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said. Two students at Brown were killed and at least eight were wounded.
Two days later, MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, was shot in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts, some 80km north of Brown’s campus, and died at a hospital the next day.
Earlier this week, an FBI official said authorities did not believe there was a link between the two shootings. Loureiro was a member of the departments of nuclear science and engineering and physics as well as MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Centre.
Seeking the public’s help
Investigators in Providence said the suspect in the Brown University shooting escaped on foot into nearby streets, prompting a search that relied heavily on residential security footage because of a lack of surveillance cameras in the classroom building and surrounding area.
Police released images and video of a masked man believed to be the shooter, based on survivor accounts, and have repeatedly asked for the public’s help in identifying that man. The footage showed the suspect walking in a nearby neighbourhood both before and immediately after the attack, including moments when police vehicles arrived with flashing lights.
“He could be anywhere,” Providence police chief Oscar Perez said on Wednesday, adding that authorities did not initially know the suspect’s identity or motive.
Police also circulated photos of another unidentified man seen near the area, saying they wanted to speak with him as a potential witness who might have relevant information.
Authorities initially announced a person was in custody a day after the shooting, but later released that individual after determining he was not involved.
