A U.S. Army veteran accused of fatally shooting four people at a bar in the small Montana town of Anaconda earlier this month has been caught after a week-long manhunt, Governor Greg Gianforte said on Friday.
The suspect, Michael Brown, 45, was captured “near the search area in Anaconda” around 2 p.m. local time on Friday, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said in a statement.
“The Anaconda shooter Michael Brown has been apprehended,“ Gianforte said on X.
“I am proud of the unrelenting law enforcement effort this week to find and arrest Michael Paul Brown,“ Knudsen said.
Brown had been sought in the shooting at Anaconda’s Owl Bar, which killed bartender Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64, and customers Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59, David Allen Leach, 70, and Tony Wayne Palm, 74.
Officials have said they did not know of any motive for the killing. Family members have told local media that Brown, who served in the Iraq War, had a history of mental illness.
Kristian Kelley, the daughter of slain bartender Nancy Kelley, told CBS News that Brown “was somebody that needed some serious resources.
“He had some mental health issues as well as PTSD from being in the military,“ Kelley told CBS. “I’ve never known him to be violent. He was a person who would tell pretty strange stories and different things like that.”
The U.S. Marshals Service had posted a $7,500 reward for any information leading to Brown’s capture after he vanished, sparking a search in nearby mountains. – Reuters
