Former classmates describe accused Brown shooter as ‘brilliant’ but arrogant and difficult

As investigators try to find the motive behind the mass shooting at Brown University and the killing of a famous MIT professor, former classmates of the accused killer described him as a bright but extremely difficult student.

The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, 48, who police said was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Thursday, was a successful student in his native Portugal but had a disruptive personality, his classmates recalled Friday.

Neves Valente studied at the Instituto Superior Técnico with Nuno Loureiro, the MIT professor he is now accused of shooting to death. school confirmed to CNN Both men were students there between 1995 and 2000, and Neves Valente majored in Technological Physics Engineering, he said.

Classmate Felipe Moura recalled that the engineering course was full of talented students, but Neves Valente stood out for both good and bad reasons.

“Claudio was definitely one of the best, but he had a great need to stand out in the class and show that he was better than the rest,” Moura wrote in Portuguese in a Facebook post.

“Claudio’s attitude was not pleasant,” he continued, and he frequently argued with “colleagues whom he did not consider to be as bright as himself (and probably were not).” “These were completely unnecessary discussions and did not help the class at all.”

Moura, who now teaches at the University of Lisbon, did not respond to messages from CNN. A former classmate, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed that Moura’s Facebook account was real.

One Interview with PúblicoMoura, a Portuguese newspaper, repeated its impression that Neves Valente was an aggressive classmate.

“He had a confrontational personality in class. So other good students would intervene, ask questions, [but] Claudio liked to say that he was the one who knew,” Moura told the newspaper.

Another classmate, Nuno Morais, told Público that Neves Valente and Loureiro were among the best students at the school, but their personalities were completely different.

“Claudio was one of the students who got the best grades in the course. He was much more theoretical,” Morais told the newspaper. “Nuno was also a good student, less outstanding in terms of his grades, but he was a more relaxed person and seemed to have a talent for slightly more applied subjects.”

After graduating in Portugal, Neves Valente enrolled at Brown University in 2000 as a graduate student in physics but was unable to finish the program. Moura said he was in contact with Neves Valente at the time and noticed that he was once again clashing with other students.

“I exchanged many emails with him at the time and saw that he maintained the same attitude, as he told me, of pursuing unnecessary conflicts with his PhD colleagues in the classroom, again thinking that he was much less capable than himself,” Moura wrote on Facebook. “I could tell you didn’t enjoy being at Brown University.”

Brown classmate Scott Watson said Valente was “socially awkward” and was his only friend in college. Watson recalled struggling in the United States, complaining bitterly that classes were not challenging and food was inadequate.

“He said the classes were very easy, and to be honest, they were. He already knew most of the material, and he was really impressive,” Watson, now a professor at Syracuse University, said in a statement shared with CNN.

Watson said Valente could be “kind and gentle” but was also volatile.

“He often got angry, sometimes angry, about the courses, the professors, and the living conditions,” Watson said, recalling that he often used insults when he had to break up a fight between Valente and another classmate.

Moura said he tried to persuade Valente to stay in the master’s program, but he left after a year.

“Claudio didn’t think any of this was worth it, it was a waste of time and the others were all incompetent,” he said on Facebook.

On an archived Brown website, Neves Valente appears to write to classmates that he is leaving school “permanently.” Note first reported by New York TimesIt contains an email address where he can be reached and a cryptic note: “The best liar is the one who can deceive himself. They are everywhere, but sometimes they multiply in the most unexpected places.”

A directory of physics graduate students at Brown at the time links to Neves Valente’s website along with his student email address. The directory indicates that he was assigned to room 122 of the Barus and Holley engineering building. Police said Neves Valente was shot last week in Room 166 in the same building.

It is not clear what Neves Valente did in the intervening years. Moura wrote on Facebook that he heard he had returned to Portugal to work for an internet provider; Police say he obtained a visa and returned to the United States in 2017, but it’s unclear what he did for work.

Police said the man’s last known address was in Miami.

Former classmates had to try to understand what could have caused this brutal violence.

“I never expected you could do something like this,” Moura wrote.

CNN’s Vasco Cotovio, Thomas Bordeaux and Julia Vargas Jones contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at: CNN.com