Suspect in Brown University shooting and MIT professor's killing found dead, officials say

The suspected gunman in a mass shooting at Brown University last week was found dead on Thursday evening, officials said, revealing that he was also suspected of killing an MIT professor near Boston.

The suspect was found in a New Hampshire storage facility in Salem, where he rented a unit with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Speaking at a press conference, Providence police chief Col Oscar Perez said investigators believe the suspect acted alone.

"We looked at financial records, we looked at video footages, and in this specific incident, it was actually a video that provided us with a description of a vehicle. That was corroborated through a tip that was received through the tip centre," Perez said.

Officials said the man is responsible for both the shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island that killed two people and injured nine others, as well as the killing of a Portuguese nuclear scientist, who was fatally shot in his Brookline home on Monday.

The 48-year-old suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, was previously enrolled at the graduate school to study physics from the fall of 2000 until the spring of 2001, but has no current affiliation to Brown, according to the Ivy League university's President Christina Paxson.

Two people were killed and nine were wounded in the mass shooting last week during final exams at Brown in Rhode Island. It remains unclear whether the suspect knew any of the victims in the auditorium.

Police briefly detained a person of interest, who was then released due to lack of evidence.

The investigation took a turn on Thursday, when authorities said they were looking for a connection between the university mass shooting and a fatal attack on the MIT professor.

Providence and Brookline are about 80 kilometres apart, or one hour by car. The state of New Hampshire borders Massachusetts, and Salem is some 60 kilometres north of Brookline.