Particle.news
Download on the App Store
9 ARTICLES
·
yesterday

Hundreds Mourn Brown Sophomore Ella Cook at Alabama Funeral

Authorities have identified a former Brown student as the suspect in the campus shooting linked to a subsequent MIT killing, with his death by suicide ending the search as the motive remains unknown.

Candles are lit by a framed photo of mass shooting victim Ella Cook at a makeshift memorial near Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 15, 2025. A gunman remained at large after a weekend mass shooting at elite Brown University left two dead and nine wounded, with US authorities releasing new footage of a masked “person of interest” captured on surveillance cameras. The shooting took place December 13 in a building where exams were underway on the Ivy League campus in Providence, Rhode Island when a man with a rifle burst in and opened fire before fleeing. (Photo by Bing Guan / AFP via Getty Images)
People arrive for a funeral service for Brown University shooting victim Ella Cook, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Birmingham, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)
People arrive for a funeral service for Brown University shooting victim Ella Cook, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Birmingham, Ala. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)
Photos of Brown University shooting victims MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, left, and Ella Cook, are seen amongst flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the Engineering Research Center, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Overview

  • Mourners filled Birmingham’s Cathedral Church of the Advent to remember 19-year-old Ella Cook, with clergy and classmates recalling her faith, kindness, and campus leadership.
  • Cook, a Brown University sophomore from Mountain Brook studying French and mathematics-economics and a College Republicans vice president, was honored as Alabama ordered flags at half-staff.
  • The Dec. 13 attack during a study session at Brown killed Cook and freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and wounded nine other students.
  • Investigators say the same suspect, 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, later fatally shot MIT professor Nuno F. G. Loureiro at his Brookline home.
  • Valente was found dead in a Salem, New Hampshire storage facility from a self-inflicted gunshot; officials cite prior ties to Brown and a shared Portuguese university connection with Loureiro, and an autopsy dates his death to Dec. 16.