An all-out manhunt is underway after four people were gunned down in a shooting frenzy at a bar in Anaconda, Montana, over the weekend.
The victims, all local residents, have been identified as 59-year-old Daniel Edwin Baillie, 64-year-old Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 70-year-old David Allen Leach and 74-year-old Tony Wayne Palm.
The victims were two bartenders and two customers, Montana Attorney-General Austin Knudsen said on Sunday (Monday AEST).
“I want to offer our deepest and sincere condolences to the community of Anaconda, to the family and friends of these victims … this is just absolutely horrific,” Knudsen said.
Authorities are still looking for the suspect, Michael Paul Brown, who has been on the loose for more than 48 hours.
Officials are offering a $7500 ($11,600) reward for any information that will lead to locating Brown, Knudsen added. He is believed to be armed and dangerous.
Brown, who family say struggled with mental health issues, was seen on security footage fleeing The Owl Bar on Friday (Saturday AEST), investigators have previously said.
He was last seen in the Stump Town area, west of Anaconda, according to The Associated Press.
Authorities locked down Barker Lake and the surrounding area inside the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest Saturday afternoon as local, state and federal agencies continue their search by land and air, a Montana Department of Justice spokesperson said.
Here’s what else we know.
Details about what led up to the shooting in the usually peaceful backcountry remain unclear.
The Montana Division of Criminal Investigation said the shooting took place at the Owl Bar at 10.30 am on Friday and the scene is now secure. As of early on Sunday, the bar is listed as “temporarily closed” online.
Cassandra Dutra, a bartender at the establishment, told CNN she felt extremely overwhelmed and saddened by the incident.
Brown lived next door to the bar and would come in frequently, she said, but noted “he wasn’t a part of the camaraderie” among other customers.
Dutra was not working on Friday, but said she lived nearby and heard noises during the shooting.
At first, she didn’t think anything of it because there was construction outside the bar. When she heard there was a shooting, she did not immediately realise people had been hurt.
“I didn’t immediately panic because I just know the atmosphere in the Owl … it never occurred to me that anybody was hurt,” she said.
Dutra told CNN that Kelley, one of the victims, was an accomplished, retired nurse who worked with cancer patients.
“I feel so sad for Nancy because I love Nancy and she was so very good to me from the day that I met her,” Dutra said. Kelley had just recently retired, Dutra said.
“It just is an extremely unfair ending for somebody who spent their entire life dedicated to cancer patients and making a huge difference,” she said.
David Gwerder, the owner of The Owl Bar, told the AP he was unaware of any conflicts between Brown and anyone who was in the bar on Friday morning.
“He knew everybody that was in that bar. I guarantee you that,” Gwerder told the AP. “He didn’t have any running dispute with any of them. I just think he snapped.”
CNN has reached out to Gwerder for comment.
Brown was part of an armoured vehicle crew in the US Army from January 2001 to May 2005, and was deployed to Iraq from February 2004 to March 2005, Lt Col Ruth Castro, a spokesperson with the US Army, told CNN in an email Saturday.
He later joined the Montana National Guard from April 2006 to March 2009 and left military service as a sergeant, Castro said.
Brown’s niece, Clare Boyle, told CNN her uncle struggled with mental health in the Army and wasn’t the same after his service.
His condition worsened after his parents died, Boyle told CNN. She described him as “very sick” but also recalled some happy moments with him, such as learning to ride a bike and fishing together.
Boyle expressed remorse and heartbreak for the victims’ families, noting that five families were “destroyed” on Friday.
The Army declined to release information about Brown’s mental health history citing policy and privacy constraints.
In addition to Barker Lake in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, where Brown is suspected of having escaped to, authorities are also searching the area around Stumptown Road, north of the lake.
Anaconda resident Dan Haffey, who previously served as a fire foreman for the Montana Division of Forestry, told CNN his team would cut trails into the mountain for hikers.
“There’s a thousand places to hide on that mountain,” he said. “I’ve been on forest fires and in that drainage up there, and they’re 5000 acres … That mountain is gigantic.”
Randy Clark, who lives near Highway 1 and Stumptown Road told CNN helicopter searches near his home continued until about 11 pm on Friday and resumed at 6 am on Saturday.
He said he heard authorities shouting on Friday, but he couldn’t tell if they were yelling at the suspect or communicating with each other.
“I heard a bunch of sirens and stuff and saw the state troopers and local police flying down Highway 1, west toward Philipsburg,” he said. “(They) stopped directly across from where I live. You could see the blue lights and stuff, everything.”
A white Ford F-150 truck that Brown drove was found after the shooting on Friday, but he “was not located in or around the vehicle,” Montana Division of Criminal Investigation Administrator Lee Johnson said at a news conference.
Anaconda Deer-Lodge County Police Chief Bill Sather said the FBI, the Denver office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Granite County Sheriff’s Office were assisting with the investigation.
