Anaconda, Montana, residents want to join manhunt after killer guns down 4

Residents of the Montana town where a crazed neighbor gunned down four patrons at a local bar are “heartbroken” after a beloved bartender was killed — and some are so upset they want to head into the mountains to join the ongoing manhunt for the killer themselves.

“It’s crazy. Everybody wants to go out there, and they’re mad,” Anaconda resident Jill Rowles told KBZK.

“It’s just such a shock. The whole town is just heartbroken,” she added. “We’re just in shock.”

Rowles is just one person in the western Montana town of barely 9,400 left reeling since 45-year-old Michael Paul Brown walked into his neighborhood Owl Bar with a rifle Friday morning and gunned down bartender Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64, and customers David Allen Leach, 70, Tony Wayne Palm, 74, and Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59.

Brown fled into the rugged countryside with authorities chasing after him — and left Anaconda residents to pick up the pieces.

“It’s very tight-knit. Everybody knows everybody. You walk across the street, and they know what you’re doing and where you’re going,” Rowles explained to KBZK.

Many are heartbroken over the loss of Kelley, whose presence behind the bar and love of animals made her a beloved fixture across town.

“She has a huge heart. She loves animals. Every animal loved her. She walked around town carrying bones for all the dogs,” Rowles told the station. “They all knew Nancy. She was just a great person who would do anything for anybody.

Rowles said she had seen Kelley just the night before her senseless murder.

“I throw horseshoes, and she and her boyfriend were throwing against us. She was watching him play — just outside, having fun, chatting.”

Kelley was also a former oncology nurse who touched many in town by helping them understand their cancer diagnosis and treatments whenever they asked for help.

Her death has left many enraged — with some even talking about heading into the Montana hills to track down her killer themselves, Rowles revealed.

“Everybody loved Nancy so much,” she told KBZK. “I hope they find him soon.”

Brown fled the Owl Bar after the shooting — wearing, for reasons unclear, nothing but his underwear — then stole a pickup truck and made it to a nearby town, before ditching the vehicle and disappearing into the rugged Montana countryside.

Anaconda and the surrounding area were initially put on lockdown as authorities launched a manhunt, and though that was lifted, police have cautioned residents to stay vigilant.

“There’s concerns he might come back into town,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said Sunday, explaining that Brown appeared to have found clothes and camping gear in the stolen truck — and was likely still armed and dangerous.

“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,” he added.

“We believe this is an armed and extremely dangerous individual.”

Search teams from numerous law enforcement agencies are continuing to scour the countryside for Brown, an Army and National Guard veteran who family says has been struggling with severe mental health problems for years.