Five Days In: Suspected Montana Mass Shooter Still At Large
Authorities are five days in to a manhunt for a former U.S. soldier suspected of killing four people at a bar in Anaconda, Montana. The town is nestled between rugged mountains and lies roughly 25 miles northwest of the city of Butte.
Michael Paul Brown, 45, fled in a stolen vehicle after the shooting and is believed to be hiding in the nearby mountainous and forested terrain, according to authorities.
The Shooting
Brown allegedly shot and killed four people at the Owl Bar around 10:30 a.m. on 1 August, using a rifle that police said was his personal weapon. The suspect lived next door to the bar, was considered a regular patron, and is thought to have known at least some of the victims.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said that local law enforcement was familiar with Brown before the shooting, according to The Guardian.
Brown—who served in the U.S. Army as an armor crewman from 2001 to 2005 and served in Montana's National Guard from 2006 to March 2009—initially left the scene in a white Ford-150 pickup truck. At a later point, he abandoned the truck and allegedly stole another white vehicle, which had clothes and camping equipment inside.
Montana does not require a state permit to own or purchase a firearm for individuals at least 18 years old, according to the National Rifle Association. However, to purchase a firearm from a federal licensed dealer, a background check is required, relying upon the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). No permit or background check is required if the seller is a private individual.
The Victims
The victims of the shooting include a female bartender and three men who were in The Owl Bar.
Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59; Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74, were all residents of Anaconda.
Kelley’s daughter, Kristian Kelley, told NBC News that her mother previously worked as a nurse for 30 years and was bartending to fill up some of her time.
Leach was deaf and lived in a public housing complex for the elderly and people with disabilities, according to Leach’s neighbor, Robert Wyatt.
The Manhunt
With the suspect still free, the roughly 9,000 residents of Anaconda are adjusting to a heightened call for vigilance. A lockdown was levied on Friday, and although it was lifted on Saturday, some local businesses have been slow to reopen, according to the Associated Press (AP). Several public events were cancelled while the search continues, and the concern remains that Brown might return to the town.
Clare Boyle, Brown’s niece, informed the AP that he has dealt with mental health issues and that Brown’s family members, including Boyle, have tried to help him for years. Brown, Boyle said, is “a sick man who doesn’t know who he is sometimes and frequently doesn’t know where or when he is either.”
Boyle told CNN that Brown’s family reached out to the Veterans Affairs Department and the Montana State Hospital seeking help for Brown, but that both organizations turned the family’s requests down or away.
Knudsen said during a news conference on 3 August that the public should remain concerned while Brown remains at large. “This is an unstable individual who walked in and murdered four people in cold blood for no reason whatsoever,” Knudsen said.
Knudsen said that local, state, and federal law enforcement officers from throughout the state are assisting with the search for Brown by both ground and air. More than 250 people are involved in the search, along with helicopters, canine detection units, and drones with heat-detection technology.
The manhunt was initially focused on an area west of Anaconda, but by Saturday the search had expanded to a wider area.
After Brown stole a vehicle, law enforcement officers pursued him “but pulled back when they realized he was most likely armed,” according to NBC News.
When additional law enforcement arrived and they approached the vehicle, Brown was gone. Knudsen told NBC News that after finding the abandoned car, law enforcement surmised that Brown had likely fled into the nearby forest and mountains. Knudsen said that there was some confusion in the response to sightings of Brown because of the involvement of multiple white vehicles.
The terrain outside of the town is rough and provides plenty of cover, full of hunting cabins, hiking trails, and abandoned mines. It is also home to the state’s largest national forest, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, The New York Times noted. “Stumptown Road, where officials say the suspect was last seen, sits between mountains covered in dense pine and aspen trees, whose peaks spend much of the year dusted with snow,” according to the Times.
Investigators are “searching all possible options for Brown’s whereabouts, including the woods where he hunted and camped in his youth,” the AP reported.
Southwest of the town, roughly 22 square miles (57 square kilometers) of the national forest was closed to the public by the National Forest System, along with the area around Garrity Mountain (another 17 square miles). The Beaverhead-Deerlodge forest spans more than 3 million acres and across eight counties in southwestern Montana.
National Forest officials said that the 22-square-mile section would remain closed until 17 August unless Brown is captured sooner, according to the Times.
The U.S. Marshals Service announced a reward of up to $10,000 for information that results in Brown’s capture.
“Investigators are not ruling out the possibility that [Brown] may now be deceased, but said they were acting on the assumption that he is alive, armed, and dangerous,” the BBC reported.
Brown is not the first fugitive to evade law enforcement by hiding in a rural area. The 1996 Olympic Park bomber, Eric Rudolph, managed to avoid capture for more than five years while hiding in rural North Carolina. He was eventually apprehended while going through a trash bin at a grocery store.
