Montana man who evaded authorities for a week after bar shooting faces four counts of murder

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A man suspected of killing four people at a Montana bar and evading capture for a week while hundreds of law enforcement officers searched for him in the nearby mountains faces four counts of murder, according to court records.

Defendant Michael Paul Brown lived next door to The Owl Bar in Anaconda, Montana, where a bartender and three patrons were shot and killed Aug. 1.

Authorities have not commented on a potential motive for the 45-year-old former soldier. His niece has said Brown long struggled with mental illness.

The charges Brown faces were posted on a court website Saturday after the case previously had been under seal by a state judge. Charging documents were not immediately available.

Following the shooting, authorities said Brown stole a truck and then ditched it a few miles outside of town, close to where he was eventually apprehended.

He hid in nearby forests, moving locations while helicopters and drones circled overhead and officers and dogs searched on the ground, officials said. But he was eventually flushed into a sparsely populated area near a state highway by the pressure of so many officers searching for him, according to officials.

Brown was captured on Aug. 8 inside an unoccupied structure near a state highway.

Investigators also are examining whether he had any contact with individuals or property owners who might have helped him while he was on the run.

State Department of Justice spokesperson Chase Scheuer said Friday that the probe is ongoing.

Brown is scheduled to make an initial district court appearance on Sept. 3. He is being held on $2 million bail and represented by attorney Walter Hennessey, who did not immediately respond to telephone messages on Friday or Saturday.

Anaconda, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Butte, is home to roughly 9,000 people. Hemmed in by mountains, it was founded by a copper magnate in the late 1800s. A smelter stack that is no longer operational looms over the valley.

The owner of The Owl Bar has said Brown patronized it over the past several decades, but he was not aware of any conflicts between the suspect and victims.

A conviction for murder, known in Montana as deliberate homicide, is punishable by death in the state. Executions have been on hold since 2015 under a court ruling regarding a drug used in lethal injections.