Authorities say they’ve identified a person of interest in Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University and are investigating whether the attack could be connected to another, still-unsolved killing: the shooting death of a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The person of interest has not been publicly identified, but law enforcement is actively tracking the lead. A source with knowledge of the investigation said officials are close to formally elevating the individual from person of interest to suspect.
The FBI had offered a $50,000 reward for information related to the gunman who killed two people and injured nine others at the Providence, R.I., campus on Saturday, Dec. 13.
On Sunday, FBI agents went to a hotel in Coventry — about 20 miles south of Providence — and questioned a man initially described as a person of interest. He was released several hours later after authorities concluded there was “no basis to consider him a person of interest,” Attorney General Peter F. Neronha said at the time.
Investigators are now also examining whether the Brown shooting may be linked to a second incident that occurred two days later, when MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was shot and killed at his home in Brookline, Mass., roughly 50 miles from Providence, according to a law enforcement source.
A separate source familiar with the investigation said authorities have a name tied to the person-of-interest lead and are searching for a vehicle in the Boston area. It remains unclear whether the vehicle is connected to the same individual, but investigators believe the same vehicle may have been spotted near both the Brown and MIT crime scenes.
No suspects have been publicly identified in Loureiro’s death.
In the Brown attack, the shooter fled after opening fire in a hallway of the university’s Barus & Holley building and managed to avoid the school’s security cameras. Authorities have released surveillance video showing the person’s movements through Providence’s College Hill neighborhood, but investigators have not yet been able to track the individual beyond that.
Two Brown students — Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov — were killed. The nine students who were injured have either been released from the hospital or remain in stable condition, according to a law enforcement source.
In the aftermath, the university canceled final exams and sent students home early for winter break.
