Brookline police release new details in murder of MIT professor Nuno Loureiro
MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was spending a quiet evening at his Brookline, Massachusetts home with his wife, children and their grandmother when he was shot to death last December, newly released police reports show.
Brookline police released 96 pages of documents detailing officers' interviews with Loureiro's family members, and their efforts to track down surveillance footage of the perpetrator, who authorities later identified as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the suspect in the Brown University mass shooting.
Investigators have said Loureiro and the suspect knew each other from attending the same university program in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.
MIT professor shot in Brookline
The reports describe how on Dec. 15, Loureiro and his wife were making dinner in the kitchen while his daughters played cards in the living room. They heard the doorbell ring at about 8:30 p.m., Loureiro's 12-year-old daughter told police.
"She got up to check who it was, which was when her dad followed behind her and told her to come back into the house," the report says.
The daughter said she saw a man who appeared to be carrying a package in the lobby of their building. She said he was not wearing gloves. She went back inside the home, and that's when she heard three or four gunshots.
The report said the girl ran back to the entry foyer and found her father laying on the ground. She also saw the suspect get into a car that was parked on the street, and drive away.
First responders found Loureiro with gunshot wounds to his chest, abdomen and both legs. He died from his injuries at the hospital the next morning. Detectives recovered six spent shell casings in the building lobby.
Search for suspect
Police said that based on family interviews, they were initially looking for a man of Indian descent in his 30s, wearing a yellow vest, blue clothing and a hat.
A neighbor who lived two doors away from Loureiro turned over footage from his security camera that overlooks Gibbs Street. Police said it showed a man in a dark mask or face covering walking on the sidewalk.
Surveillance footage also showed the suspect vehicle "circling the streets ... several times prior to the shooting," the police report said.
Interviews at MIT
The reports also show what information investigators got from employees at MIT, where Loureiro was a renowned nuclear science and engineering professor who had recently been named director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
One woman who worked with Loureiro said he had research contacts with the Department of Energy.
"She wasn't aware if Loureiro had a Top Secret Clearance or if he was doing any work with the Department of Defense," the report said.
Detectives asked about the "level of disappointment" students can experience if they fail out of graduate program like the one Loureiro oversaw. But Loureiro's coworkers described him as well-liked, with one saying that 'students loved him."
Seen on surveillance video
The reports say a person matching the description of the suspect was also seen on surveillance video earlier in the day on Commonwealth Avenue, near the Boston University campus.
Police said footage showed that Valente's gray Nissan rental was parked on Babcock Street at 8 a.m. At around 1:30 p.m., he was seen looking in the windows of different restaurants in the area of 1030 Commonwealth Ave. He entered one, Pho Viet, and paid for a takeout sandwich with cash while wearing a face mask and gloves before getting back into his car.
In the moments after the shooting in Brookline, police say the suspect vehicle was caught on a Yankee bus dashboard camera "with its headlights and taillights off." It was later seen driving west on Route 20 in Watertown, and at a Waltham gas station near the I-95 junction.
Police say Valente died by suicide the next day in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire.
