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Authorities said Thursday that they’re looking into a connection between last weekend’s mass shooting at Brown University and one two days later near Boston that killed a professor at another elite school, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
That is according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss an investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. Two of the people said investigators had identified a person of interest in the shootings and were actively seeking that individual.
The attacker at Brown on Saturday killed two students and wounded nine others in a classroom in the school’s engineering building before getting away.
About 50 miles (80km) north, MIT professor Nuno FG Loureiro was gunned down in his home Monday night in the Boston suburb of Brookline. The 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist died at a hospital the next day.
The FBI previously said it knew of no links between the cases.
It has been nearly a week since the shooting at Brown. There have been other high-profile attacks in which it took days or longer to make an arrest or find those responsible, including in the brazen New York City sidewalk killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO last year, which took five days.
But frustration is mounting in Providence that the person behind the attack managed to get away and that a clear image of their face has yet to emerge.
“There’s no discouragement among people who understand that not every case can be solved quickly,” the state attorney general, Peter Neronha, said at a news conference Wednesday.
Authorities have scoured the area for evidence and pleaded with the public to check any phone or security footage they might have from the week before the attack, believing the shooter might have cased the scene ahead of time.
Investigators have released several videos from the hours and minutes before and after the shooting that show a person who, according to police, matches witnesses’ description of the shooter. In the clips, the person is standing, walking and even running along streets just off campus, but always with a mask on or their head turned.
Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack happened in an older part of the engineering building that has few, if any, cameras. And investigators believe the shooter entered and left through a door that faces a residential street bordering campus, which might explain why the cameras Brown does have didn’t capture footage of the person.
Providence mayor Brett Smiley said the city was doing “everything possible” to keep residents safe. However, he acknowledged that it is “a scary time in the city” and that families likely were having tough conversations about whether to stay in town over the holidays.
“We are doing everything we can to reassure folks, to provide comfort, and that is the best answer I can give to that difficult question,” Smiley said when asked if the city was safe.
Although it’s not unheard of for someone to disappear after carrying out such a high-profile shooting, it is rare.
In such targeted and highly public attacks, the shooters typically kill themselves or are killed or arrested by police, said Katherine Schweit, a retired FBI agent and expert on mass shootings. When they do get away, searches can take time.
“The best they can do is what they do now, which is continue to press together all of the facts they have as fast as they can,” she said. “And, really, the best hope for solutions is going to come from the public.”
Investigators have described the person they are seeking as about 5ft 8in, tall and stocky. The attacker’s motives remain a mystery, but authorities said none of the evidence suggests a specific person was being targeted.
Loureiro, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of MIT’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.
He grew up in Viseu, in central Portugal, and studied in Lisbon before earning a doctorate in London, according to MIT. He was a researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon before joining MIT, the university said.
“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner,” Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who previously led the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, told a campus publication.
