A man suspected in a shooting at a Montana bar that left four people dead was captured Friday just a few miles from where the shooting happened after hundreds of law enforcement officers spent the past week scouring nearby mountainsides, authorities said.
Michael Paul Brown, 45, was taken into custody around 2 p.m. near the area where authorities had focused their search in the days following the Aug. 1 shooting at The Owl Bar in Anaconda, about 190 kilometers) from Missoula.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said during a news conference that about 130 law enforcement officers made a hard push Thursday after getting tips that helped verify they were looking in the right area.
“It’s not someplace he’d been hiding. He was flushed out,” Knudsen said.
Gov. Greg Gianforte first confirmed Brown’s capture on social media Friday afternoon, saying it was the result of what he called a “Herculean effort” from law enforcement officers across the state.
The community finally would be able to sleep tonight, Anaconda-Deer Valley County Attorney Morgan Smith said, adding that the case is just the beginning for prosecutors who will be seeking to charge Brown with the killings.
It was not immediately clear if Brown had legal representation. Email and phone messages were left Friday with the Montana public defender’s office.
State authorities have not said what sparked last week’s shooting, which left a female bartender and three male patrons dead. The victims were identified as Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64; Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74.
Brown’s niece, Clare Boyle, said Kelley worked previously as an oncology nurse and was a close family friend who helped Brown’s mother when she was sick.
Bar owners from around the state have pledged to donate a portion of sales to a fund for each of the victims’ families.
The shooting rattled the tight-knit town of about 9,000 people and prompted the closure of a 57-square-kilometer stretch of forest as authorities searched for Brown. He had fled from the shooting in a white pickup that he later ditched. Authorities say he later stole another white vehicle stocked with clothes, shoes and camping gear. Earlier in the week, Knudsen had said it didn’t appear that Brown had broken into any homes in the area for food or additional supplies.
Lee Johnson, administrator of the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, said search teams found Brown at a structure near The Ranch Bar and that he looked to be “in pretty good shape, physically.” He was communicative and able to identify himself, Johnson said. Brown was taken to a hospital for treatment and was medically cleared earlier Friday.
Eric Hempstead, who owns The Ranch Bar, about eight kilometers west of The Owl Bar, described an intense law enforcement presence in the densely wooded area over the last couple of days that involved search dogs and drones.
“The guy was never going to make it out in the open,” he said, noting that he and his neighbors were armed and ready to protect themselves.
Brown, who lived next door to The Owl Bar in Anaconda, served in the Army as an armor crewman from 2001 to 2005 and deployed to Iraq from early 2004 until March 2005. He also was in the Montana National Guard from 2006 to 2009.
Boyle said that her uncle has struggled with mental illness for years, and she and other family members repeatedly sought help for him.
Before Brown’s father died in 2015, Boyle said Brown was “a good, loving uncle.” Then, she and other family members noticed a slip in his mental state. Brown began experiencing delusions and often did not know who, when or where he was. He was an avid hunter and kept guns in his home.
Family members had requested wellness checks when they believed he was becoming a danger to himself, she said. Boyle said Brown would tell authorities he was fine.
The Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Law Enforcement Department did not respond this week to several email and phone messages requesting records of the wellness checks Boyle said they helped conduct on Brown in the years leading up to the shooting.
At the news conference, Knudsen said officials had no comment on whether police had performed wellness checks.
Montana is not among the states that have red flag laws allowing families to formally petition for guns to be removed from the homes of people who are deemed a danger to themselves or others. The state Legislature passed a bill this year banning local governments from enacting their own red flag gun laws. The governor signed it into law in May.
