Michael Paul Brown, a US Army veteran, was captured after allegedly fatally shooting four people in Montana. Photo / Getty Images
Michael Paul Brown, a US Army veteran, was captured after allegedly fatally shooting four people in Montana. Photo / Getty Images
The US Army veteran suspected of fatally shooting four people in a small-town Montana bar last week has been taken into custody, authorities said today.
Montana Attorney-General Austin Knudsen said 45-year-old Michael Paul Brown was captured about 2pm on Friday local time near the search area.
The August 1 killingsat the Owl Bar in Anaconda – a town with fewer than 10,000 residents in the southwestern part of the state – led to a week-long search for the suspect, who lived next door to the bar.
The incident left the mountain community on edge for several days.
“May God continue to be with the families of the four victims still grieving their loss,” Governor Greg Gianforte (R) said in a statement today.
Knudsen identified the victims at a news conference on Monday as Daniel Edwin Baille, 59, David Allen Leach, 70, and Tony Wayne Palm, 74, all of whom were patrons at the bar. A bartender – Nancy Lauretta Kelly, 64 – was also killed, Knudsen said.
Authorities have not shared a suspected motive. It’s likely that Brown “knew the bartender and these patrons, which makes this even more heinous”, Knudsen said Sunday.
The suspect was previously known to law enforcement and used his own rifle in the shooting, Knudsen said – though he did not specify what type. A SWAT team cleared the fugitive’s house in Anaconda after the shooting.
Authorities said Brown, known to have mental health issues, used his own rifle in the shooting. Photo / The Washington Post
Local officials, FBI agents and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched by land and air – initially focused on the Stumptown Rd area, several kilometres from the shooting, and the surrounding mountain range. More than 250 investigators were on the ground at one point, Knudsen said.
A photo taken shortly after the shooting, released by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation, showed the suspect shirtless, barefoot and wearing only black shorts. The picture appeared to have been taken outdoors and shows him walking down stone steps while holding on to a wall for support.
“We know he went to another location, not far away, he got rid of some personal belongings and he got rid of his clothes,” Knudsen said.
The suspect “ended up grabbing” a stolen vehicle that contained camping equipment, likely including clothing, Knudsen said.
Brown’s abandoned vehicle, a white Ford F-150 pickup, was found on August 1. Authorities offered a $7500 cash reward for information about the suspect’s whereabouts.
Brown served in the Army as an armour crewman from January 2001 to May 2005, Major Travis Shaw, a service spokesman, previously told the Washington Post. Brown was deployed to Iraq from February 2004 to March 2005 and served in the Montana National Guard from April 2006 to April 2009, Shaw said, leaving the service with the rank of sergeant.
Two people who knew Brown said he had a known history of mental illness.
Clare Boyle, his niece, said he had “severe mental illness that was left untreated for many years”. He inherited guns from Boyle’s grandfather when he was “was medicated and very stable”, she told the Washington Post in a message.
Kelly, one of the victims, was a “close family friend”, Boyle added. When Brown “realises what he’s done”, Boyle wrote, “it’s going to break his heart if it hasn’t already”.
“I wish I knew where he could be,” Boyle added as the search reached its fourth day. “It’s usually Mom and I who would talk him off the edge when he was suicidal or erratic and I’d give anything just to talk to him right now.”
Shane Charles, 52, the owner of Carmel’s Sports Bar & Grill a block away from the Owl Bar, said he knew Brown from growing up together in the small town. Brown had told him he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, Charles said.
“Everybody in the community knew that he had mental health problems,” he said.
“He would tell people that he’s John Wick,” Charles said, referring to the action hero played by Keanu Reeves in the eponymous franchise. “And we would listen, you know, we never told him that he wasn’t, but we would listen.”
