Investigators say two early clues – a campus custodian’s observations and an anonymous Reddit post – helped narrow their search for Brown University shooting suspect Claudio Valente, according to a newly released affidavit.
A university’s custodian told detectives he had noticed a suspicious person with a surgical mask whose clothing matched images police had released several times in the weeks prior to the shooting. The man “walked with a limp,” the affidavit said.
Detectives later reviewed university surveillance footage from Dec. 1 and found a figure consistent with the general description of the suspect.
Two weeks later, on Tuesday, police received an anonymous alert pointing investigators to a post on the Providence Reddit board, in which a user said they saw the suspected shooter walking in the area.
“I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into the guy Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. That was the car he was driving,” the user wrote, adding that it was parked alongside a small outbuilding near the Rhode Island Historical Society, a block from the earlier sighting.
The Reddit user, identified by officials as the man believed to have been “in proximity” to the person of interest, approached Providence Police, the affidavit said.
When investigators re‑examined camera footage, they found a car partially obscured by the property’s trees, aligning with both the Reddit tip and earlier video of the suspect’s movements. The car was rented to Valente, the affidavit said.
