Montana bar shooting: Manhunt intensifies for suspect as victims are named

BBC News

10 hours ago

Police have named four people killed in a shooting at a bar in the US state of Montana as a manhunt for an army veteran suspected of the attack entered its third day.Barmaid Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64, and three customers - Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59, David Allen Leach, 70, and Tony Wayne Palm, 74 - died as a rifle-wielding assailant opened fire at the pub in the city of Anaconda on Friday morning.Police said the suspect, 45-year-old Michael Paul Brown, fled to the nearby foothills afterwards. Authorities have offered a reward of $7,500 (£5,650) for any information that will lead to his capture.
"This is an unstable individual who walked in and murdered four people in cold blood for no reason whatsoever," Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told a news conference on Sunday. "So there absolutely is concern for the public."He added that officials had since widened their search area to include national forest land outside Anaconda, a town with a population of almost 10,000 in south-western Montana that is surrounded by dense, mountainous terrain."We want to find this guy," Mr Knudsen said. "This is a dangerous individual who has committed an absolute heinous crime against this community."Around 250 law enforcement officers - federal, state and local - have been aiding in the search on foot as well as by car and helicopter, officials said. The shooting happened at The Owl Bar at around 10:30 local time on Friday morning, officials said. Mr Knudsen noted that the suspect was a regular at the pub and had lived next door. He said it was "likely that he [the suspect] knew the bartender and these patrons, which makes this even more heinous". Cassandra Dutra, another barmaid, told CNN that the suspect would come into The Owl Bar frequently, but "he wasn't a part of the camaraderie" among customers. Ms Dutra was not working on Friday.Ms Kelley's daughter told NBC News her mother had been a nurse for around 30 years until retiring recently.Nancy Kelley said her mother had found a part-time job at the bar as "it kept her a little bit social, just seeing people". She said a mass shooting was once unthinkable in Anaconda."We didn't even lock our cars outside, you know, or the house, and it's, I mean, I wouldn't say, it's dangerous here at all," she told NBC.Investigators are not ruling out the possibility that Mr Brown may now be deceased, but said they were acting on the assumption that he is alive, armed and dangerous. Mr Brown is a veteran of the US Armed Forces, who served as an armour crewman from 2001-05, and was deployed to Iraq from 2004-05, a military spokeswoman told US media. After the shooting authorities found a white Ford-150 pick-up truck that they said the suspect had used to get away, but no sign of him.On Saturday, the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation released an updated image that they said showed the suspect fleeing the scene.In the photo, a man is seen shirtless, barefoot and wearing only black shorts, and walking down a set of stairs while leaning against a stone wall.Mr Knudsen said the photo was taken after the suspect got rid of some personal belongings and his clothes. He believes Mr Brown later got a different set of clothing and shoes, and was "able to get around".The shooting forced many businesses in the area to shut down on Friday. Some have since reopened, but numerous public events have been cancelled due to the manhunt.Mr Brown's niece, Clare Boyle, told the Associated Press news agency her uncle had struggled with mental illness for years."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."