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Law enforcement officials handling the tragic incident at Brown University publicly praised a private citizen on Friday for coming forward with critical information that helped cracked the case and led to the suspect.

Crucial Tip Shared on Social Media

A man known publicly so far only as “John” posted pivotal details on the social media forum about an encounter with the individual that alerted investigators, as other forum members encouraged him to contact authorities with his information.

“He was, in fact, critical to this and certainly the entire city owes this individual a debt of gratitude,” said Brett Smiley in an interview.

The man contacted a law enforcement official in Providence, the state capital where the university is located, and stated, “You are probably searching for me,” according to authorities.

Unusual Encounter and a Financial Incentive

John reported an odd interaction at the university with the person who was later identified as the suspect and said he also observed him acting oddly near a rented gray Nissan car with tags from Florida.

He is now likely in line for the $50,000 reward offered by the federal authorities for tips that helped locate the suspect in the Brown tragedy.

“He came in and was fully forthcoming, provided key details ... We had disparate pieces of information and we had strong suspicions that these pieces of information fit together but it hadn’t been corroborated and he was able to do that for us, and so it truly marked a pivotal moment,” Smiley explained.

Background of the Tipster

The informant was reportedly of no fixed abode and was residing temporarily in the basement of an engineering building at the university where he initially encountered the suspect in a bathroom prior to the mass shooting last weekend.

He later pursued the man and observed him with the vehicle that eventually helped investigators locate him in Salem, New Hampshire, where the suspect was found dead from a apparent suicide on the previous evening.

The mayor noted the tipster was, in fact, a university alumnus. “He held pride for that community and he realized [when he encountered the suspect on campus] that it was someone he had never seen before, which aroused his suspicions,” Smiley commented.

Ongoing Investigation

Smiley said that the reason of the deceased suspect, the identified individual, was not yet known, regarding the attack at Brown, where he was briefly a graduate student decades prior, and the killing of a academic at the prestigious tech university.

Authorities suspect the suspect was also responsible for shooting dead academic Nuno FG Loureiro at his home in the Boston suburbs.

The mayor added that the tipster likely felt genuine concern for his personal security after an photograph of him from surveillance footage was released by the police but “this was an individual who stepped up and acted for all the right reasons.”