Montana bar shooting victims named, as top cop offers new warning about ‘unstable’ gunman

The Montana madman who gunned down four people at a smalltown bar could slip back into the neighborhood and threaten residents, police cautioned as their manhunt for the killer continued.

“Absolutely, there’s concerns he might come back into town,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told reporters Sunday as the search for Michael Paul Brown entered its third day.

“This is an unstable individual who walked in and murdered four people in cold blood for no reason whatsoever. So there absolutely is a concern for the public,” Knudsen added. “We believe this is an armed and extremely dangerous individual.”

Brown, 45, is suspected of walking into the Owl Bar in Anaconda, Montana, on Friday morning and unloading on patrons and staff with a rifle.

Four people were killed, and he fled from the bar wearing nothing but his underwear and disappeared into nearby countryside.

The victims were revealed to be bartender Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64, and patrons David Allen Leach, 70, Tony Wayne Palm, 74, and Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59.

Brown lived next door to the bar and was a regular there. While officials said he likely knew most of his victims, no motive has been revealed.

It remains unclear why Brown was unclothed when he fled — an eerie scene captured in security footage that showed him creeping down a stone staircase from the bar — but officials said he is likely fully equipped again after he stole a white pickup truck filled with camping gear.

He has since abandoned that truck, official said.

Anaconda is located about 25 miles northwest of Butte and near the mountainous border with Idaho.

Search teams from numerous agencies — including the federal government — have joined in the search party, with helicopters scanning the rugged countryside for any signs of the suspect.

Residents were initially ordered to shelter in place after the shooting, but have since been allowed to go about their business.

Officials have asked they maintain extreme caution, however.

“We believe he is probably still armed and dangerous,” Knudsen said.

Brown served in the Army from 2001 to 2005 and was deployed to Iraq, then did a three year stint in the Montana National Guard.

Family said he has struggled with mental health in recent years, and advised that the shooting wasn’t just the act of a “high man going wild.”

“It’s a sick man who doesn’t know who he is sometimes and frequently doesn’t know where or when he is either,” Brown’s niece, Clara Boyle, wrote of Facebook.