The US Department of Justice has made public chilling video transcripts from the man believed to be responsible for a deadly shooting spree that began at an Ivy League campus. The recordings reveal the shooter had meticulously planned the Brown University attack over an extended period.
Details Emerge from Storage Unit Recordings
According to a press release from the Justice Department, the suspected shooter, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, admitted in the videos that he had been "planning the Brown University shooting for a long time". The electronic device containing these recordings was found alongside his body in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, days after the violence.
Authorities, who translated the videos from Portuguese, state the individual discussed having rented the storage space where he was ultimately found dead for approximately three years. In the recordings, he expressed no remorse, stating he felt he had nothing to apologise for, and also complained of injuring his eye during the shootings.
Timeline of a Five-Day Manhunt
The sequence of events began on 13 December, when the shooter entered the Brown University campus in Providence. He opened fire in a classroom within the engineering building, killing two students and wounding nine others.
The victims were identified by their families as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama, and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, a first-year student from Uzbekistan.
Two days later, the gunman travelled to Brookline, Massachusetts, where he shot and killed 47-year-old MIT professor and fusion scientist Nuno FG Loureiro. The shooter had attended school with Loureiro in Portugal decades earlier, though no motive for targeting him or Brown has been provided.
A massive five-day search involving local, state, and federal law enforcement, including the FBI, ensued. It concluded on 18 December when the suspect was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the Salem storage unit, located roughly 40 miles north of Brookline and over 80 miles from Brown University.
University Confirms Past Affiliation
Brown University President, Christina Paxson, confirmed the shooter's limited history with the institution. He was enrolled in the graduate school to study physics from September 2000 until the spring of 2001. Paxson emphasised that "he has no current affiliation with the university".
The release of these transcripts offers a disturbing glimpse into the premeditation behind the attacks but leaves critical questions about motivation unanswered, as communities in Providence and Brookline continue to mourn their losses.
