An amateur detective was the one who helped police in the massive manhunt for the Browns University shooter in Rhode Island – when he posted a tip on Reddit about his encounter with the man
A social media sleuth helped police track down the prime suspect in the Brown University shooting — and it’s all thanks to Reddit. The tip came from an anonymous Reddit user, known only by the psydonym “John,” who was helped by police to “blow the case open right away.”
Claudio Neves Valente – a Portuguese national who had previously studied at university in Providence, Rhode Island, was found dead on Thursday (December 18) after an intensive manhunt. The 48-year-old was discovered with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of the city where the Ivy League school is located.
After officials released videos and images of a man of interest taken just hours before the deadly shooting that killed two people and injured nine others, “John” said he recognized the approximately 6-foot-tall man “with a stocky build” who the FBI was hunting.
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John wrote: “I’m dead serious. The police need to investigate a gray Nissan with Florida license plates, possibly a rental car. That was the car he was driving. It was parked in front of the little shack behind the Rhode Island Historical Society on the Cooke St side. I know because he used his key fob to open the car, walked up to it and then something made him back up.
“As he backed up, he relocked the car. I thought that was strange, so as he drove around the block, I approached the car and that’s when I saw the Florida license plates. It was parked in the area between the RIHS gate and the corner of Cooke and George St.”
The police then viewed the camera images and discovered the gray Nissan with Florida license plates, which John flagged as suspicious, according to Sky News. Investigators then used surveillance cameras to track the vehicle’s journey, with the car driving to a Boston suburb before later making its way to the Salem storage facility.
Valente had changed the license plates on his car in an attempt to cover his tracks, officials said. John later told police that he first encountered the masked man in the bathroom facilities of the Barus and Holley building — where the shooting occurred — around 1:45 p.m. on the day of the incident.
‘John’ then explained how he felt ‘alarmed’ when he noticed the man’s clothing which was ‘inappropriate and inadequate for the weather’. He then began following the alleged shooter around the area, before noting his parking spot and inspecting the contents of his vehicle.
He noticed “two fanny packs on the rear passenger side floorboard” and continued to follow the suspect, who eventually accused John of “harassing” him.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said at a news conference Thursday: “We had that photo of that second person, and within an hour, no more than two, that person turned himself in to two Providence police officers. He blew this case straight open. If you crack it, you crack it.
“That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photos of that person who rented the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, which matched the bag.” Just two hours after their meeting, the shooting occurred on the college campus.
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