Why the manhunt for a Montana mass shooting suspect has proven exceedingly difficult
CNN Newsource
By Holly Yan, Josh Campbell, CNN
(CNN) — Stymied by treacherous terrain and untamed wilderness, authorities are struggling to find an Army veteran suspected of killing four people at a Montana bar last week.
Investigators say Michael Paul Brown, 45, vanished Friday after gunning down a bartender and three patrons at The Owl Bar in Anaconda – a community of less than 10,000 people nestled between the dense forests and formidable mountains of western Montana.
“This is an unstable individual who walked in and murdered four people in cold blood – for no reason whatsoever,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said Sunday. “So there absolutely is concern for the public.”
Among the countless potential hideouts: Garrity Mountain, a popular hiking and camping site lined with cabins for outdoor enthusiasts.
As of Tuesday, the Garrity Mountain Wildlife Management Area remained closed “until further notice” due to public safety concerns and an ongoing law enforcement presence, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks said.
Other manhunts in the wilderness have lasted weeks – with at least one fugitive still missing after two months.
But it’s not just the challenging landscape impeding Brown’s capture.
The suspect had a big advantage
Brown fled in a sparsely populated area with fewer authorities, one official said, essentially giving him a head start while partnering law enforcement agencies were brought in from around the state.
And Garrity Mountain “is gigantic,” said Anaconda resident Dan Haffey, a former fire foreman for the Montana Division of Forestry whose team cut trails for hikers.
“There’s a thousand places to hide on that mountain.”
An array of local, state and federal authorities have joined in the manhunt, including the FBI, the Granite County Sheriff’s Office and the Denver office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But many of them had to travel to the manhunt, giving Brown more time to get away.
Denver, for example, is about 600 miles from Anaconda.
The search is exhausting with a grueling landscape
Hundreds of people from 38 local, state and federal agencies have helped with the manhunt, Anaconda Deer Lodge County Attorney Morgan Smith said.
The work is particularly strenuous for crews on the front lines.
“Look, it’s rough terrain up there. We’ve got a lot of personnel up there working. They’re carrying a lot of gear – animals, equipment, packs,” Knudsen said Tuesday.
While investigators have found evidence in the area, they’ve also expanded the search zone, said Lee Johnson, head of the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation.
“The type of terrain, it’s very challenging,” Johnson said Tuesday. “So we have expanded our perimeters to look in different areas.”
There are fewer witnesses around
A $10,000 reward is available for information leading to Brown’s capture. But four days after the killings, Brown still hasn’t been found.
“There’s a lot of land, and not a lot of people,” said Dan Brunner, a former agent at the FBI’s field office in Bozeman, Montana.
“So there’s not a lot of civilians that will be looking out their window looking for a suspicious person,” Brunner said. “This man could easily hide for multiple, multiple weeks if he had resources prepared for himself.”
Brown has already been resourceful in his escape. Even though surveillance footage showed him fleeing in his underwear shortly after the killings, authorities believe he gathered fresh supplies from a white Ford F-150 pickup truck.
“It was a stolen vehicle, but there was camping equipment in it. We believe there was some clothing in it,” Knudsen said.
“So at this point, we have every reason to believe the suspect is fully clothed, shoes on his feet, able to get around.”
His military experience might help
Brown’s military background may have also honed his tactical skills.
He served in the US Army from January 2001 to May 2005 and was part of an armored vehicle crew, Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Ruth Castro told CNN. Brown was deployed to Iraq from February 2004 to March 2005.
He later joined the Montana National Guard from April 2006 to March 2009 and left military service as a sergeant, Castro said.
Brown is the latest fugitive with military experience who’s led authorities on an arduous manhunt through the wilderness.
Army veteran Travis Decker is still nowhere to be found two months after authorities said he suffocated his three daughters and left their bodies in the woods near Leavenworth, Washington.
Joseph Couch, a former combat engineer in the Army Reserve, evaded capture for more than a week last year after he sprayed bullets from an AR-15 onto cars on Interstate 75 in Kentucky, wounding five people. After an 11-day manhunt, Couch’s body was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
It’s not clear how long Brown might be able to elude authorities.
“If someone has knowledge of a wooded area – in other words, they live there, they may have hunted there, they know that area – they can live there for quite a long time, and those are some of the toughest people to locate,” retired US Marshal Steve Prosser said.
However, “even if you have survival skills, you’re not equipped in the long term to be self-sustaining without the help of other human beings,” said Donald Lane, who worked as a Secret Service agent and with the Department of Homeland Security for 20 years.
But authorities are confident Brown won’t outsmart them.
“We’ve got a lot of expertise, a lot of knowledge of the area,” Knudsen said.
“We’ve got every cabin, every hunting site that’s known up there pinned. There is a tremendous number of assets focused on searching that area.”
CNN’s Taylor Romine and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
