Insane twist of fate for homeless hero who cracked Brown shooter case amid hapless feds’ FIVE-DAY manhunt as he’s set to receive $50K reward
It turns out that the homeless man who solved the Brown University shooting case is no longer living on the streets and is not “protected” by the feds.
The rogue tipster, known by the pseudonym John, was sleeping in the basement of a campus building when he helped police track down gunman Claudio Neves Valente after an unsuccessful five-day manhunt.
Federal authorities housed John at a hotel and made sure he was provided with meals, a source said. New York Post.
The insider added that John could possibly collect the $50,000 reward the FBI is offering for information leading to a break in the case.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley also called on the agency’s director, Kash Patel, to present the award to John for his work in helping solve the crime.
‘John is nothing short of a hero,’ Smiley wrote in a letter to Patel. ‘His courage, dedication and stewardship on behalf of his community went far beyond what anyone could have expected from a tip.’
John’s encounter with the shooting suspect went viral after he shared the details on Reddit.
Now strangers invited John to Christmas dinner and suggested he get ‘the key to the city and free coffee and donuts for life,’ according to fellow contributors to Reddit’s Providence forum.
The homeless man known as John (pictured) who solved the Brown University shooting case is no longer living on the streets and is being “taken care of” by the feds, a source has claimed
Former Brown University student and Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente (pictured), 48, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday evening. Police believe he is responsible for Brown shooting and killing MIT professor Nuno FG Loureiro
Brown University students Ella Cook (left) and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov (right) were killed in a mass shooting last weekend.
John’s tip also helped police identify Neves Valente as the person who shot and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno FG Loureiro.
mayor’s office authorities received hundreds of tips on the case, but ‘John’s was well beyond the most helpful.’
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told the press last week that John had “blown this case.”
John, who previously attended Brown University, regularly slept in the basement of the Barus and Holley building on campus.
HE He encountered the gunman in the bathroom of Brown’s engineering building just hours before the fatal attack, according to a police affidavit.
Additionally, Neves noted that Valente’s clothing was ‘unsuitable and inadequate for the weather conditions’.
John then encountered the shooter outside, just a few blocks from the building. The tipster said he “suddenly” pulled away from the Nissan when he saw John.
According to John’s statement, the two then confronted each other in a ‘cat and mouse game’ and exchanged words before Neves Valente ran away.
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Investigators believe Neves Valente killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno FG Loureiro (pictured) at his home in Massachusetts two days after carrying out the mass shooting at Brown University
At one point John said, ‘There’s your car, why are you circling the block?’ He says he shouted.
Neves Valente responded, ‘I don’t know you from anyone,’ and then asked John repeatedly, ‘Why are you harassing me?’ he asked. according to the declaration.
John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approaching the Nissan sedan once again and decided to drive away.
As police shared photos of the person of interest in the attack (now identified as Neves Valente), John began posting on social media forum Reddit that he knew the suspect.
He theorized that police should investigate the ‘possibly rented’ gray Nissan. Reddit users asked him to notify the FBI, and John said he did so.
“I’m dead serious,” John’s Reddit post read. ‘The police need to look at a gray Nissan with Florida plates, possibly for rent.’
‘I know because he used his key fob to unlock the car, approached the car and then something made him back away,’ he wrote.
‘When he pulled back he locked the car again. I found this odd and approached the car as it came around the block and that’s when I saw the Florida license plates.’
This is homeless Reddit user John, who led police to Brown University shooter Claudio Neves Valente. John had encountered Neves Valente several times before Saturday’s attack.
The FBI released this photo showing Neves Valente (left) and a man later identified as John (right) who were ‘in the vicinity’ of the gunman on the day of the shooting.
Police learned of the tip on Dec. 16, three days after the shooting and one day after the tip line was created, the affidavit said.
Up to that point, the police affidavit states, authorities had not secured a vehicle for the would-be shooter.
That detail allowed them to obtain more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida license plates and gave Providence police officers access to a network of more than 70 street cameras operated throughout the city by the surveillance company Flock Safety.
Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese citizen, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a warehouse in New Hampshire on Thursday evening.
Investigators believe the man responsible for fatally shooting two students and wounding nine others in a Brown University auditorium last Saturday.
He then killed Loureiro, who was also Portuguese, two days later at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, about 50 miles from Providence.
As far as investigators know, Neves Valente acted alone.
This is John’s Reddit post, which police say led to the case breaking
Neves Valente was enrolled as a graduate student studying physics at Brown University from fall 2000 to spring 2001. He has no affiliation with the university at this time,” university president Christina Paxson said.
Neves Valente and Loureiro, who is also Portuguese, had previously attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.
According to the MIT faculty page, Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s leading engineering school, in 2000.
That same year, Neves Valente was dismissed from his position at the University of Lisbon, according to an archive of the termination notice sent by the school’s then-president in February 2000.
Neves studied at Valente Brown on a student visa. He eventually obtained legal permanent resident status in September 2017.
It was not immediately clear where he was between the time he took a leave of absence from school in 2001 and the time he received a visa in 2017. His last known residence was Miami.
After authorities announced the identity of the suspect, President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program that allowed Neves Valente to remain in the United States.
