Montana shooting victims named as manhunt for suspect continues

The Guardian

3 days ago

Montana's attorney general on Sunday released the names of the four people who were shot to death in a mass murder at a bar two days earlier.
The victims were Daniel Edwin Ballie, 59; Nancy Lauretta Kelly, 64; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74. All four were residents of Anaconda, Montana, where the quadruple murder took place, a statement from the Montana attorney general, Austin Knudsen, said.
Former US army soldier Michael Paul Brown, 45, is suspected of having killed Ballie, Kelly, Leach and Palm at The Owl Bar in Anaconda. Kelly was a bartender, and the others were patrons, Knudsen said at a news conference Sunday.
Brown remained at large as of Sunday, with officials warning that he may be armed as well as getting around in a stolen car containing clothes and camping gear.
Knudsen alleged that Brown carried out Friday morning's mass murder with a rifle that law enforcement believes was his personal weapon.
The attorney general warned residents in the town of just more than 9,000 people that Brown, who lived next door to the bar where he was a regular, could come back to the area.
Anaconda is about 75 miles (120km) south-east of Missoula in a valley hemmed in by mountains.
'This is an unstable individual who walked in and murdered four people in cold blood for no reason whatsoever,' Knudsen remarked on Sunday. 'So there absolutely is concern for the public.'
Numerous local public events were canceled over the weekend as the search for Brown entered its third day, according to Facebook pages in the area.
Robert Wyatt, 70, told the Associated Press that he was neighbors with Leach.
The two men lived next door to each other in a public housing complex for elderly people and people with disabilities.
'Everybody is nervous' since Friday, Wyatt said. Leach was deaf and kept mostly to himself, Wyatt said – and he only recalls Leach having a family visit once almost a year ago. But Leach was always happy to help his neighbors with chores like moving furniture.
'If you needed help, Dave would help,' Wyatt said to the AP. 'He was a good neighbor.'
Among the areas that investigators have searched for Brown are woods where he hunted and camped while he was a child.
Brown served in the Army as an armor crewman from 2001 to 2005 and deployed to Iraq from early 2004 until March 2005, said Lt Col Ruth Castro, an army spokesperson. Brown was in the Montana national guard from 2006 to March 2009, Castro said, and left military service at the rank of sergeant.
Brown's niece, Clare Boyle, told the AP that her uncle had spent years struggling with mental illness. Boyle said she and other family members repeatedly sought help.
'This isn't just a drunk/high man going wild,' she said in a Facebook message. 'It's a sick man who doesn't know who he is sometimes and frequently doesn't know where or when he is either.'
Knudsen said on Sunday that local law enforcement was familiar with Brown prior to the mass murder. It was widely believed that he knew at least some of the victims, given how close he lived to the bar.
Authorities circulated a photograph of Brown from surveillance footage taken shortly after the fatal shootings. He appeared to be barefoot and in minimal clothing.
But law enforcement now believes Brown ditched the vehicle he escaped in and stole a different one that had camping gear, shoes and clothes in it – leaving open the possibility that Brown is now clothed.
The last time that law enforcement saw Brown was on Friday afternoon, but there was 'some confusion' because there were multiple white vehicles involved, Knudsen said.
There is a $7,500 reward for any information that leads to Brown's capture.
'This is still Montana,' Knudsen said. 'Montanans know how to take care of themselves. But please, if you have any sightings, call 911.'
Elsewhere in the US on Sunday, authorities in Tennessee were searching for a man wanted in the murders of the parents, grandmother and uncle of an infant found alone and alive in a discarded car seat.
Austin Robert Drummond, 28, was named as the suspect in that quadruple murder. Two other men had been arrested on allegations that they assisted Drummond, according to investigators.
The victims in that case were found dead in Tiptonville, Tennessee, about 40 miles from where the baby was left, officials have said. They were identified as James M Wilson, 21; Adrianna Williams, 20; Cortney Rose, 38; and Braydon Williams, 15.
Associated Press contributed reporting