A homeless man, who has only been publicly identified as “John,” is entitled to the $50,000 reward for his pivotal role in cracking the case of the deadly shootings at Brown University and MIT, according to Ted Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha echoed Docks, stating that he “blew this case right open” and emphasizing, “When you crack it, you crack it.”
Claudio Neves Valente, the identified gunman, opened fire in a classroom at Brown University, killing two students: sophomore Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov.
Witnesses reported the shooter making a disturbing “barking noise” during the attack. Just two days later, Valente struck again, gunning down a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
According to a university custodian, Valente had been casing the Brown campus for weeks prior to the rampage.
Hours before the Brown shooting, John, who was living in the basement of Brown’s engineering building at the time, confronted Valente in the building’s bathroom, noting that the suspect’s clothing was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather.”
Later, outside the building, John followed Valente and challenged him, yelling, “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?” Valente replied defensively, “I don’t know you from nobody,” and repeatedly asked, “Why are you harassing me?”
John’s suspicions deepened when he observed Valente interacting oddly with a grey Nissan bearing Florida plates, possibly a rental.
Valente used his key fob to unlock the car, approached it, then backed away and relocked it before circling the block again.
John approached the vehicle himself and noted the plates.
The homeless hero quickly took to Reddit to share his tip, “I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. I know because he used his key fob to open the car, approached it, and then something prompted him to back away. When he backed away, he relocked the car. I found that odd, so when he circled the block, I approached the car that is when I saw the Florida plates.”
This crucial post, combined with surveillance footage, enabled investigators to identify Valente after having no leads for days.
The suspect was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, ending a tense six-day manhunt.
A $50,000 reward had been offered for information leading to the suspect’s identification. Still, initially, it was unclear if John would receive it, especially after the police released his image as a person they wanted to speak with.
However, federal officials, including FBI Special Agent Ted Docks, have now confirmed his entitlement, with Docks telling The New York Post, “It would be logical to think that, absolutely, that individual would be entitled to that.”
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