There\u2019s been a lot of commentary written about the tragic Brown and MIT shootings<\/a> the past two weeks. As we struggle to process the traumas, the anthropologist in me is also struggling to make sense of the reporting.<\/p>\n Some of the commentary was spot on, some of it was wildly off the mark.\u00a0 Across all varieties, I\u2019ve noticed one striking absence.<\/p>\n Most of the speculations focused relentlessly on who, what, when, where<\/em>, and, especially, how<\/em>. \u00a0Americans, after all, are famous for our pragmatism. So perhaps it should not have surprised me that few commenters speculated about why<\/em>.<\/p>\n Those who did consider motives tended to gravitate toward one of two well-trafficked political fears hauled out in a generic scenario.\u00a0 Either the crime was committed out of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia \u2014 the two currently-dominant narratives<\/a> in the U.S. that, while not entirely isomorphic, might productively be seen (for, ironically, linked reasons) to loosely occupy opposite sides of the same fear-of-the-other coin in America.<\/p>\n What I didn\u2019t see in the press, early on, was much speculation about motives based in biography that could have led this particular killer to these particular crimes in these particular places. \u00a0Even if one of those two prevalent political motivations proved relevant, why those two sets of targets?<\/p>\n The only person I heard speculating about such biographical niceties from the moment the news broke was my writer\u2013husband.<\/p>\n The author of two novels and two collections of short stories, along with three memoirs and dozens of short essays about the craft of writing, Philip Graham<\/a> has taught hundreds of creative-writing students across a forty-year teaching career.\u00a0 Always, his lessons begin with character.\u00a0 When mysterious motives frustrated or confused a student\u2019s classmates, Philip was on it.<\/p>\n So, as soon as the barest details of the Brown massacre were announced, my husband grabbed onto any scrap of reported life history to imagine the killer\u2019s motives. One detail was circulating in worried Jewish circles that, in search of a biography, Philip tentatively expanded on. \u00a0The economics professor whose lecture room on the Brown campus was invaded was a specialist in Israeli social issues. \u00a0If those brutal killings of two students, and wounding of nine more, was motivated by anti-Semitism, it would make sense that the killer targeted not only any Jew, but a Jewish professor who teaches Jewish studies. \u00a0And not only any Jewish professor teaching Jewish studies, but the professor who teaches the single-most popular class on the Brown campus (Introduction to Economics), in which some 50% of all Brown students enroll<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, there are plenty of Jewish studies professors on campuses across America.\u00a0 Brandeis, for one, is just up the road, with one of the most robust Jewish studies programs in the country. \u00a0So, why Brown?<\/p>\n In the absence of any relevant information, online speculation focused overwhelmingly on other questions.<\/p>\n How had the shooter escaped, after doing his murderous deeds? \u00a0Weren\u2019t there video cameras in the building, and on the street, that captured his image? \u00a0How many video cameras are installed on the Brown campus, anyway? \u00a0Were they all turned on, and functional? \u00a0Is anyone combing through their footage? \u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, some grainy footage was released of a man seen repeatedly walking up and down the streets in the vicinity of the building that was the site of the campus rampage.\u00a0 That footage was time-stamped at various points before and after the event. Could AI enhancement clarify this individual\u2019s profile? \u00a0These and other technical questions obsessed journalists, investigators, and the general public for two days.<\/p>\n On the Islamophobic side of the political divide, conspiracy theorists found doctored videos of the alleged suspect who they swore looked like a Middle Eastern man. \u00a0Then, they went to town. \u00a0Someone found an image of a Middle Eastern male student at Brown whose physique seemed to resemble that of the suspect.\u00a0 Suddenly, we saw a digital lynch mob go into action.\u00a0 Without imagining the effects on this unsuspecting student, people with tens of thousands of online followers posted details of this innocent student on social media, activating a new kind of digital violence of the sort that only the Internet age can produce. And, still, no intelligent ruminations about the criminal\u2019s motives.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, 45 miles north, another horrendous murder occurred. \u00a0This time, the victim was a highly respected and beloved MIT professor. \u00a0Could there be any link between the two murders? \u00a0The Providence police chief and Attorney General of Rhode Island immediately denied it. \u00a0\u201cNo known connection,\u201d they asserted.<\/p>\n \u201cReally?\u201d my writer-husband mused.\u00a0 \u201cTwo elite campuses in New England targeted within two days? \u00a0No way that\u2019s a coincidence. Maybe this shooter has some grudge against Brown University and <\/strong>the MIT professor.\u201d<\/p>\n What did we know about Dr. Nuno Loureiro, the unfortunate MIT professor?\u00a0<\/p>\n Jewish speculation zeroed in on claims that Dr. Loureiro might be Jewish. \u00a0Now my writer-husband\u2019s imagination went to town. \u00a0Maybe the killer, an anti-Semite targeting the Brown professor because of her Israeli research, knew her study session would be meeting in that large lecture room, and he could target her there. \u00a0But when the killer burst into the classroom, my husband reasoned, the murderer would have been disappointed to find a teaching assistant leading a study session \u2014 no professor in sight. Frustrated by his miscalculation, the assassin would have pulled the trigger to shoot anybody he could.<\/p>\n Where else could the murderer find a more appropriate target? \u00a0The maybe\u2013Jewish professor at MIT, it was reported, had supported Israel.\u00a0 This time, the killer would take no chances. \u00a0Instead of miscalculating in which classroom his new target might or might not be teaching, the killer would go to the source and shoot him at home. \u00a0My husband\u2019s new theory had only a few facts and unsupported rumors to go on, but at least this was a story that made some possible psychological sense.<\/p>\n Until it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n New facts emerged that suggested new narrative pathways for a character-driven story.<\/p>\n A local witness-who might-or-might-not-be-homeless (reports varied) posted tantalizing observations on Reddit<\/a>, of all places.\u00a0 This fellow had seen that suspicious-looking guy from the video walking back and forth on the streets around the targeted building.\u00a0 It took a couple of days for the Brown police to locate the witness, but when they did, the witness supplied enough details that the detectives could do what detectives do best.\u00a0 Meticulously, they pieced together <\/a>times, financial and legal records, and memories.\u00a0 That led them to the person who had rented the car approached by the suspect, as spotted on campus by the witness.\u00a0 The car rental record led them to a name.\u00a0 And, as Rhode Island\u2019s attorney general declared with confidence, once you have a name, you can find anyone.<\/p>\n Moreover, that name yielded all sorts of new information.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a press conference, Brown\u2019s president revealed that the shooter had once been a student at Brown. \u00a0But that was 25 years ago, she hastened to point out. \u00a0He had enrolled in 2000, but then he took a leave of absence before the end of his second semester, and he never returned. \u00a0Insisting that the shooter had no current connection to Brown, the university\u2019s president \u2014 no doubt, eager to save Brown\u2019s reputation as a safe space \u2014\u00a0implied that the decades-long gap between the murderer\u2019s enrollment and his crime must mean that having chosen to kill people on the Brown campus was purely arbitrary, since he had such a brief engagement with Brown, and so long ago.<\/p>\n \u201cHmmm,\u201d muttered my husband.\u00a0 Perhaps something traumatic occurred at Brown that the murderer thought ruined his life. \u00a0You don\u2019t drop out of an Ivy League University for no reason. \u00a0\u201cWhat happened to him in that program 25 years ago?\u201d Philip wondered. \u201cAnd why did it take him so long to act on his resentment?\u00a0 There\u2019s some unidentified passion here.\u201d<\/p>\n Being willing to imagine, re-imagine, and re-re-imagine any character\u2019s motivations is a classic technique honed by fiction writers. William Faulkner<\/a> once told West Point students about his writing process: \u201cIt begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.\u201d<\/p>\n So, what was that gunman studying at Brown, anyway?<\/p>\n Oh, he wasn\u2019t an undergraduate student.\u00a0 He was enrolled in a Ph.D. program \u2014 in physics.<\/p>\n Wait, said Philip.\u00a0 That MIT professor was a physicist.\u00a0 Maybe they knew each other.<\/p>\n Then, it turned out the shooter was Portuguese.\u00a0 The MIT professor was Portuguese. New connect-the-dots facts called out. <\/p>\n The suspect was 47, the MIT professor was 48.\u00a0 My husband revised his story. As we knew firsthand from a year spent in Lisbon<\/a>, the world of academia in Lisbon is small.\u00a0 As Portuguese age-mates, now it seemed almost impossible that the professor and his killer didn\u2019t <\/strong>know each other. <\/p>\n The suspect had enrolled in a doctoral program in physics at Brown in 2000. \u00a0The MIT professor was a physicist. \u00a0As an age-mate, he, too, must have been enrolled in some physics program somewhere around 2000 as well. \u00a0In fact, he had enrolled in a doctoral program at Imperial College London.<\/p>\n After Valente dropped out of Brown, he returned to Lisbon for 16 years. But, in 2017, he won the Diversity Visa Lottery and returned to the U.S. That was a year after Loureiro joined the faculty at M.I.T. Another non-coincidence, my writer-husband was convinced.<\/p>\n Philip revised his story again. \u00a0\u201cI think it\u2019s about professional jealousy.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, new details surfaced in the Portuguese press<\/a> that corroborated this intuition.<\/p>\n As a high school student, Valente was so promising that, at 17, he was selected to participate in a physics competition in Australia.\u00a0 And, he had a GPA of 19<\/a>. \u00a0That\u2019s on a scale of 20. \u00a0In Portugal, no one gets a 19. \u00a0Or, pretty much no one.\u00a0 An average of 10\/20 is considered a passing grade, and that\u2019s utterly respectable. \u00a0Anything between 10 and 12 is considered just fine, while 13 to 15 is impressive. \u00a016 to 18 is exceptional, and 19 only comes along maybe once in a generation. \u00a020 is pretty much reserved for God.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Brown-U-Pennant-Teddy-Bear-Flowers-1024x683.jpg\")
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