NEW YORK, Dec 19 — The man believed to be behind a mass shooting at Brown University that left two people dead and several others wounded has been found dead, officials confirmed yesterday.

Authorities also believe the same man, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and Brown University student, was responsible for the fatal shooting of a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in his Boston home.

Providence police chief Oscar Perez identified the suspect as Claudio Neves-Valente, saying: “He took his own life tonight.”

The shooter, found at a storage unit in New Hampshire with two firearms, is believed to have acted alone.

“Tonight, our Providence neighbours can finally breathe a little bit easier,” Mayor Brett Smiley said.

There is no immediate indication of a motive behind the twin shootings at two of the United States’ top universities.

“The groundwork that started in the city of Providence… led us to that connection,” Perez said, without offering further details. A press conference is expected in Boston.

The Brown University shooting, which took place on Saturday in Providence, Rhode Island, occurred when a man with a rifle entered a campus building during exams and opened fire, killing two students before fleeing.

The victims were Ella Cook, vice president of Brown’s Republican Party association, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, originally from Uzbekistan, who had aspired to become a neurosurgeon.

One survivor remains in critical but stable condition, five are stable, and two have been discharged from hospital, Mayor Smiley said earlier.

Investigators initially released images of a person of interest and another individual seen nearby in an effort to trace the suspect. Authorities briefly detained a man in connection with the shooting but later released him.

Brown University has faced scrutiny over its security arrangements, including criticism from President Donald Trump, after it emerged that none of the university’s 1,200 security cameras were linked to the police surveillance system.

This year, the United States has seen over 300 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot. Efforts to restrict access to firearms continue to face political deadlock. — AFP