Aug. 8 (UPI) — The suspect in a shooting that killed four people at a bar in rural western Montana was arrested Friday, seven days after a multiagency manhunt.
Michael Paul Brown, a 45-year-old Army veteran, was arrested at 2 p.m. local time in the search area in Anaconda, the Montana Department of Justice said.
The shooting occurred on Aug.1 in Anaconda, which is 130 miles east of Idaho and 198 miles west of Bozeman, Mont.
He is in the custody of the Anaconda-Deer Lodge authorities.
“Incredible response from law enforcement officers across Montana,” Gov. Greg Gianforte posted on X. “May God continue to be with the families of the four victims still grieving their loss.”
During a news conference, he appeared with several involved in the search. “These brave men and women in uniform sacrificed their lives and time away from family to ensure this killer was brought to justice,” he said.
Gianfort said the search was lengthy because the search terrain was rugged as personnel spent hours climbing over these mountains looking for this criminal.”
Brown was on the run in what authorities describe as the “biggest shooting” in the state in a decade.
Surveillance video captured Brown fleeing Old Owl Bar where he lived next door. His white Ford F150 was found on the day of the shooting.
“We think that was directly correlated to flushing him out today — getting him down into an area that we know we had searched before,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said. “It was not someplace he’d been hiding. He was flushed out.”
He was armed.
Authorities with 38 agencies — local, state and federal — were searching for him, including in the western Montana wilderness.
“I am proud of the unrelenting law enforcement effort this week to find and arrest Michael Paul Brown,” Knudsen said at the news conference. “The support we’ve seen for the community of Anaconda from across the state and the nation has also been remarkable.”
Killed were bartender Nancy Kelley, 64; and three patrons: Daniel Baillie, 59; Nancy Kelley, 64; David Leach, 70, and Tony Palm, 74.
“It just isn’t real. It’s totally overwhelming,” said Cassandra Dutra, a bartender at the Owl Bar who wasn’t working at the time, said in a CNN report.
He was a known regular at the bar.
Brown served in the Iraq war and the Montana National Guard.