Owl Bar owner skeptical of PTSD claims for accused shooter
ANACONDA — Michael Paul Brown walked into the Owl Bar that deadly morning holding a burning pizza box with a fuse-like flame that was apparently meant to be a distraction before he allegedly opened fire, killing four people.
David Gwerder, owner of the Owl Bar, said Wednesday that investigators told him after the Aug. 1 shootings about the burning pizza box and its apparently ominous role.
Gwerder said he has been unable to watch surveillance video of the slayings. The Owl Bar recently reopened and he said it’s still traumatic to go there. He wasn’t working the morning of the shooting because he’d worked late the night before. But he arrived soon after.
Gwerder, who said he has owned the Owl Bar for 30 years, knew all the victims. He said he’s known Michael Brown, 45, for years. He said he is not convinced Brown left the U.S. Army with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as some of the defendant’s acquaintances have insisted.
Service records show Brown, an armor crewman, deployed to Iraq from February 2004 to March 2005 and later served in the Montana National Guard.
“I knew him when he went in the Army and I knew him when he got out,” Gwerder said, noting he had observed no obvious symptoms of PTSD.
Brown lived next door to the Owl Bar on East 3rd Street. The house is now boarded up.
Gwerder said he has no idea what drove Brown to allegedly shoot and kill four people the defendant knew on the morning of Aug. 1.
Brown pleaded not guilty Wednesday to four counts of deliberate homicide and other charges related to the shootings. His subsequent flight from police led him into the forest, thickets and hills west of Anaconda where he remained for a week.
Brown also pleaded not guilty Wednesday to attempted arson.
He was captured Aug. 8 and is being held without bond in the Butte-Silver Bow Detention Center.
Gwerder said he knew bartender Nancy Lauretta Kelley better than the three regular customers who died that day. He said he learned more about them from their obituaries than from their times at the Owl Bar.
“Dave was kind of quiet,” Gwerder, referring to David Alan Leach, 70, one of the four victims.
He said customers Tony Wayne Palm, 74, and Daniel Edwin Baillie, 59, enjoyed working on cars together.
Gwerder was one of about 30 people who attended Brown’s arraignment Wednesday morning in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County District Court. Brown appeared via video from the Butte jail. He was flanked by two public defenders.
Judge Jeffrey Dahood has sealed many of the filings in Brown’s case that might shed more light publicly on what happened on Aug. 1. For example, authorities have said Brown used a rifle that day but have provided no other details about the weapon.
Dahood has ruled that the sealed records are necessary to ensure Brown receives a fair trial.
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