A weeklong search for a man suspected in the deadly shooting at a Montana bar ended Friday in his capture, authorities said.
Michael Paul Brown, 45, had been on the run in the mountains since police said he shot four people at The Owl Bar in the town of Anaconda on Aug. 1.
“The Anaconda shooter Michael Brown has been apprehended. Incredible response from law enforcement officers across Montana. Thank you to all partners for your commitment to the search. May God continue to be with the families of the four victims still grieving their loss,” Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte posted on X.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said police apprehended him near the search area in Anaconda around 2 p.m. Friday, per CBS News.
“I am proud of the unrelenting law enforcement effort this week to find and arrest Michael Paul Brown. The support we’ve seen for the community of Anaconda from across the state and the nation has also been remarkable. The families and friends of the victims remain in my prayers,” Knudsen said.
Last Friday, at about 10:30 a.m., a man walked into the bar and opened fire on the bartender and patrons inside. He killed four people before fleeing the scene.
Killed were Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59; Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74.
“By all indications, this is an unstable individual who walked in and murdered four people in cold blood for no reason whatsoever,” Knudsen told reporters last Sunday.
Brown lived next door to the bar and appeared to be a regular, he said. Investigators believe he used his own rifle in the shooting.
Brown served in the Army from 2001 to 2005, including a stint in Iraq, and then in the Montana National Guard from 2006 to 2009. His niece, Clare Boyle, told The Associated Press that her uncle struggled with mental illness for years, and several local residents told CBS News they were aware of his troubles.
Kristian Kelley, whose mother Nancy Kelley was among the victims, said, “He was somebody that needed some serious resources. He had some mental health issues as well as PTSD from being in the military,” per CBS News. “I’ve never known him to be violent. He was a person who would tell pretty strange stories and different things like that.”
The town of Anaconda is about an hour and 15 minutes southwest of Helena. It has a small tight-knit community of 9,000 people. At a vigil last Sunday, bar owner, Dan Gwerder, told the Montana Free Press that, “It’s gonna be a long healing process for a lot of people.”
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