Brown University Shooter Briefly Lived in Las Vegas

  • The suspected Brown University shooter was found dead by suicide on Thursday night in New Hampshire
  • Officials report that Claudio Manuel Neves Valente briefly lived in Las Vegas in 2017

Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente — the 48‑year‑old Portuguese national identified as the gunman in the Dec. 13, 2025, Brown University shooting — had a short but documented residential tie to Las Vegas.

Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente lived in this apartment building at 475 Sierra Vista Drive in Las Vegas in 2017. (Images: Google and US Attorney Massachusetts)

According to investigators, Valente killed two students and wounded nine others during a final exam review session inside Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering building. Two days later, on December 15, he fatally shot MIT plasma physicist Nuno Loureiro at the professor’s Brookline, Mass. home.

The multistate manhunt ended on December 18, when Valente was found dead of a self‑inflicted gunshot wound inside a rented storage unit in Salem, NH.

Vegas Connection

Law enforcement sources confirm that Valente once lived in Las Vegas, and public records indicate that it was at 475 Sierra Vista Drive, an apartment building about 1.5 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip, near UNLV and the Convention Center corridor.

His residency here appears limited to 2017, the same year he secured permanent US status through the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery program.

Valente’s US trajectory began in August 2000, when he entered on an F‑1 student visa to pursue a Ph.D in physics at Brown. He attended only from fall 2000 through spring 2001, then took a leave of absence in April 2001 before formally withdrawing in July 2003.

After leaving Brown, his movements remain largely unknown until Las Vegas. Authorities found no evidence of employment in Nevada casinos, criminal activity, or community involvement during his time in the area.

From Las Vegas, Valente moved to Miami, his last known permanent address.

Valente’s death closed the manhunt but leaves unanswered questions about his motive.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Corey Levitan joined Casino.org in 2022 after a long career covering Las Vegas. He currently covers entertainment, dining and gaming news in Las Vegas.

Corey spent six years covering the Vegas Strip for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he also wrote the most popular humor column in the city’s history. (For “Fear and Loafing,” he tried out 176 Vegas jobs, including poker player, blackjack dealer and Follie Bergere dancer.)

Corey has won more than 100 local, state and national awards for his journalism, which has also appeared in Rolling Stone, New York Magazine and the New York Post.

Corey is a New York native whose hobbies include playing guitar, trying to be a better husband, and arguing with strangers on Facebook.

Contact Corey at corey@casino.org.

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