Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez apparently decided to take a victory lap after bungling the Brown University shooting case and the related fallout by attending Friday night’s basketball game between Providence and Seton Hall. What no one in the arena seemed to know at the time, but many of the principal players may have known, was that an anonymous tipster actually cracked the case – a homeless man.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez are among the first responders being honored tonight. pic.twitter.com/t1Co5BQs2r
— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) December 19, 2025
According to reports, it appears that the homeless man, whose full identity has not been released, is the one who cracked the case. Those reports indicate that the tipster known as “John” was said to have been living in the basement of the engineering building on the Brown University campus where the shootings took place.
As John’s story goes, he watched an individual use his key fob to unlock the car door of a gray Nissan with Florida license plates. The man approached the car, and something made him back off and then lock the car door again.
In addition to his eye for detail and his sharp memory, John also had a sense that something strange was going on. He posted all of this on Reddit while the police were asking the public for its help in the investigation.
On Reddit, John wrote, “I found that odd, so when he circled the block, I approached the car that is when I saw the Florida plates.” John also speculated that the car was a rental.
Reports are that local and federal law enforcement had no solid leads prior to this.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha credited John with the breakthrough they needed, saying, “He blew this case right open.”
A homeless man blew the Brown University shooting case “wide open” through his own Reddit post.
He called the tip line, flagged his post, & was on video close by the shooter, asking why he was circling the block.
He solved the case, not Providence PD pic.twitter.com/chwJx3zNww
— Truthseeker045 (@0Shadow37) December 19, 2025
FBI Special Agent in Charge Ted Docks told the New York Post that the homeless man may now qualify for and receive a $50,000 reward for helping lead police to the suspect Claudio Neves Valente, but not before he allegedly committed suicide in a storage unit.
John told police that he had a strange “cat and mouse” episode with the shooter hours before the shooting happened. He said he saw the suspect in a restroom inside the engineering building. He also noticed that Neves Valente was not dressed for the cold weather, as you’d expect.
A little while later, John ran into Neves Valente outside the building, which is when John actually decided to tail him and confront him.
John told police that he asked the suspect, “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?” Court documents indicate that Neves Valente then reportedly said to John, “I don’t know you from nobody…Why are you harassing me?”
With this new information, police were able to then pore over more security camera video, looking for that gray Nissan. Very quickly, police were able to connect new data from credit card purchases and cell phone use, in a quest that would ultimately lead them to a storage unit in New Hampshire. Once they got to that storage unit, police said it was too late. Neves Valente was already dead from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
All of this progress transpired in the roughly 24-hour period after John told police what he knew.
Neves Valente is now suspected of shooting and killing MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, after he allegedly shot and killed Brown University students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, and wounding at least nine others.
After a tragedy like this, you hope things can change so that something like this doesn’t happen again. But that would require the powers that be in Providence and on the campus of Brown University to learn from it. More to the point, it would require them to face up to and own up to the serious lapses in security that happened under their watch. All of which would have them still looking for a killer, and still facing the press with that deer-in-the-headlights look, if not for the active curiosity of one homeless man.
Christmas is almost here, and we’ve got just the idea to round out your list for that special person in your life. There’s no better way to tell someone what they mean to you than giving them the gift of common sense thinking and a break from the legacy media! PJ Media VIP memberships are on sale! Get 74% off of an annual VIP, VIP Gold, or VIP Platinum membership! Use promo code FIGHT to get 74% off a VIP membership!
