A Brown University custodian spotted depraved gunman Claudio Neves Valente “circling” school hallways and peering into classrooms nearly a dozen times in the weeks before his mass shooting — and alerted campus security twice about the suspicious figure, a new report said.
Derek Lisi, who has worked at the elite school for 15 years, told the Boston Globe he “knew something was off with” the lurking man before the sicko opened fire in a lecture hall, killing two students, Dec. 13.
While Lisi said he twice told the same security guard about a suspicious person skulking around the Barus and Holley building as early as November, it’s unclear if any action was taken by the guard or campus officials.
“He’d been casing that place for weeks,’’ looking into classrooms and “circling the hallways,’’ Lisi told the outlet of Neves Valente.
“I thought it was someone trying to steal something. Every time he saw me, I think he thought I was security, because he would always walk away.’’
Lisi said he first informed a guard in mid-November about the suspicious person and then again flagged the guard down again about the man Dec. 1, according to the publication.
“I said, ‘Something’s off with this guy, so I gotta say something,’ ” Lisi said.
“That building has been a free-for-all for a long time,” the janitor claimed. “Anybody could just come in.”
Brown officials did not return a Post email seeking comment.
The guard appeared to work for a private firm hired by the school, the Globe reported, adding that the company did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal authorities previously said in court documents that a custodian, identified as Lisi by the Globe, noticed a suspicious person in the targeted building weeks before the shooting. The man who Lisi spotted ended up matching Neves Valente’s physical appearance, the feds said.
“I knew it was him because I could tell by the walk,” Lisi told the Globe of the killer. “He had a pretty distinctive walk.”
Neves Valente, a former Brown grad student in the early 2000s, shot up the campus building before gunning down MIT professor Nunu Loureiro at his home about 50 miles away two days later.
The crazed shooter was found dead by suicide on Thursday night.
His motive is unclear, but former friends and classmates have said he looked down on Brown over everything from its food to supposed lack of academic intensity and had gone head to head in school with Loureiro as a younger man, earning better grades but ultimately going nowhere professionally while the dead man soared.
Authorities credited a homeless man, only identified as “John,” for helping break open the case that led police to Neves Valente by flagging his rental car.
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