Military veteran arrested a week after deadly Montana bar shooting

The suspect allegedly fled the scene wearing only black shorts

A US Army veteran accused of fatally shooting four people at a bar in the US state of Montana a week ago has been arrested, according to officials.

Michael Paul Brown, 45, was found on Friday afternoon near another pub not far from the scene of the original attack in the city of Anaconda on 1 August.

Investigators said their search on Thursday of foothills surrounding the town may have flushed the suspect out of hiding into an area that had already been searched by law enforcement.

A barmaid, Nancy Lauretta Kelley, 64, and three customers, Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59; David Allen Leach, 70; and Tony Wayne Palm, 74, died in the attack at The Owl Bar, where the suspect had been a regular.

"It's a good day," said Attorney General Austin Knudsen at a news conference on Friday afternoon. "We got our man."

He said the suspect was detained in good physical condition near The Ranch Bar, just 5 miles (8km) west of The Owl Bar.

The attorney general told reporters that Mr Brown was "technically armed" when apprehended, without providing further details.

The shooting stunned tight-knit Anaconda, a town of almost 10,000 people in south-western Montana that is surrounded by dense, mountainous terrain.

The state's governor, Greg Gianforte, posted on X about the arrest and lauded the "incredible response from law enforcement officers across Montana".

Officials have said the suspect walked into the pub, where he lived next door, and opened fire almost immediately. The bar's owner has told US media that he believed the suspect just "snapped".

Nancy Kelley, the barmaid killed in the shooting, previously worked as an oncology nurse and had helped Mr Brown's mother when she was sick, the suspect's niece, Clare Boyle, told AP news agency.

Mr Brown, who was deployed to Iraq as a US Army armour crewman from 2004-05, was an avid hunter who kept guns in his home.

But he was said by friends and acquaintances to have suffered in recent years from mental health problems.

Kristian Kelley, the daughter of the barmaid killed in the shooting, said: "He had some mental health issues as well as PTSD from being in the military."

Another local resident, Shane Charles, said Mr Brown would tell odd stories that he was action hero John Wick, or he was the US president's right-hand man.

Someone else who knew him, Scot Conrady, told the New York Times that Mr Brown once claimed to have jumped off the Empire State Building and landed in a trash can.

Montana is not among the states that have red flag laws, which can allow families to seek court orders to remove guns from the homes of those perceived as a danger to themselves or others.