• Bar Shooting
• Brown
• Captured
• Montana
• Suspect

MANHUNT ENDS WITH CAPTURE OF SUSPECT IN MONTANA BAR SHOOTING

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  CapitalTimesNews / 6 months
• 0
• 3 min read

A suspect in a shooting at a Montana bar that left four people dead was captured Friday just a few miles from where the shooting happened. 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 August 1 shooting at The Owl Bar in Anaconda. 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. 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. 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. The search for Brown involved hundreds of law enforcement officers scouring nearby mountainsides, and authorities had focused their search in the days following the shooting. Brown had fled from the shooting in a white pickup that he later ditched and stole another white vehicle stocked with clothes, shoes, and camping gear. 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.