How a Reddit user cracked the Brown shooting case, could get a reward
According to investigators, a Reddit user was responsible for a key break in the case that allowed police to locate Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the man accused of killing two Brown University students in a mass shooting and then killing an MIT professor in Boston.Now the tipster could be in line to claim a significant reward.Around 4 p.m. on Saturday, Neves Valente entered the Barus and Holley building on the Brown campus and opened fire, killing two students and injuring nine more. He then fled the scene. But earlier in the day, he had an encounter on campus with a man who later posted about it on Reddit and eventually recounted the incident to police, breaking open the case.Providence police chief Oscar Perez credited the witness for understanding that he had important information.“There was a person that was pretty attentive about his surroundings,” Perez said at a Thursday press conference after Neves Valente was found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire. “There was a person that was very cooperative and helpful to this investigation. And I’ll tell you that he was a great individual that actually assisted us in getting us to this point where we’re at.”On Monday, a user posted on a Reddit thread in the r/Providence subreddit, detailing an encounter with a man on the Brown campus in the hours before the shooting.In a thread about new images of the person of interest, the user posted:“I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. 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, approached it and then something prompted him to back away. When he backed away he relocked the car. I found that odd so when he circled the block I approached the car and that is when I saw the Florida plates. He was parked in the section between the gate of the RIHS and the corner of Cooke and George St.”Another user responded to that post on Tuesday, saying they were going to call it in to the tip line.Investigators said they received that tip on Tuesday, found the Reddit post and sought to corroborate the account. Video footage matched the post’s version of events, including footage of the witness confronting the suspect.“We received the tip about that post and immediately acted on it,” Perez said. “We had a tip center upstairs that was staffed by detectives and agents. They were going through hundreds of tips that were coming in. Hundreds. We were vetting them through, ruling them out.”Because Reddit is an anonymous site, police had to find the poster. On Wednesday, investigators put out images of the witness in an attempt to bring him forward, and he responded “within an hour,” according to Rhode Island attorney general Peter Neronha.The witness, referred to in an affidavit only as “John,” agreed to an interview with police on Wednesday and gave a detailed rundown of his encounter with the suspect.According to the affidavit, John told police he first encountered the suspect inside a bathroom on the ground floor of the Barus and Holley building around 1:45-2 p.m. on the day of the shooting. He noticed the suspect’s jacket and gloves, which he described as “flimsy” and “inadequate for the weather.” The suspect wore a facemask over the lower part of his face, but the two made eye contact.John saw the suspect leave the building and walk up Manning Street. Believing the man to be suspicious, John followed him to a gray Nissan parked near the Rhode Island Historical Society on the corner of Benevolent Street and Cooke Street. Sensing John’s presence, the suspect suddenly turned and walked away in the opposite direction.John approached the car and noted the Florida plates and hung around the car, observing the suspect as he returned to the area. The suspect changed direction and John followed, with the suspect changing directions every time he encountered John. John described it to police as “a game of cat and mouse.”John caught up to him on George Street and asked him, “Your car is back there, why are you circling back?”The suspect responded, “I don’t know you from nobody.” He then repeatedly asked “Why are you harassing me?”At that point, John left the area. When he recognized the man from photos released by the FBI, he posted on the Reddit thread, where the tip eventually made its way to police.Because of John’s statement, police were able to confirm the person of interest was driving a gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates, which led them to the Boston car rental agency that revealed Neves Valente’s name and financial documents. Using that information, investigators tracked Neves Valente to a storage unit in Salem, N.H., where he was discovered Thursday night dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.“He blew this case right open. He blew it open,” Neronha said. “That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence.”Police had previously seen footage of the suspect’s encounter with John, but did not know John was also the Reddit poster until he came forward.“We knew about what was on Reddit, but we didn’t know who that person was,” Neronha said. “That’s why we identified another person. We didn’t know when that person came forward that he was the Reddit poster. He then told us he was.”Neronha watched John’s interview with police and said that had Neves Valente not killed himself, John’s testimony would have held up in court.“It would not only have been credible, it would have been persuasive,” Neronha said.Reddit is an online social media site founded in 2005 with more than 100 million active users. The r/Providence subreddit has more than 74,000 users, and the thread featuring John’s post had more than 800 comments. Neronha credited the Reddit user for coming forward as soon as he knew authorities wanted to speak with him, especially because Neves Valente had not yet been apprehended at that point.“He was as outstanding a witness as I’ve seen,” Neronha said. “And he deserves a lot of credit. You know, recognizing there’s a gunman on the loose that the gunman knows he had this interaction with him, and he didn’t — once he knew that we were looking for his help, I mean, he came forward within an hour. And that person deserves a tremendous amount of credit.”On Monday, the FBI announced it was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person responsible for the Brown shooting.It is unclear whether “John” will receive any of that reward money for making the Reddit post that led police to solve the case, but Neronha is advocating for him.“I don’t know whether he’s going to get the reward or not, but if I had a vote, he would,” Neronha said.
