Property owner encountered suspected Anaconda bar shooter day before he was captured

The property owner encountered accused killer Michael Paul Brown just before dark.

“I was just headed back to my (home) trailer and my dogs started barking,” the owner said. “And then I was face-to-face with him.”

The man who owns the property where Brown was captured Aug. 8 agreed to an interview Monday with The Montana Standard on the condition he not be named in the story.

Brown had been a fugitive since he allegedly shot and killed four people at the Owl Bar in Anaconda on Aug. 1.

“I was scared as sh..,” the owner said about suddenly meeting Brown.

For several days, with Brown reportedly hiding in the vicinity of nearby Garrity Mountain, the owner had been consistently armed with a 9 mm handgun for protection. But he’d been up and down a ladder that day on his property west of Anaconda, he said, and did not have it with him. That’s something he now considers fortunate because there could have been a fraught outcome, he said. He noticed the fugitive had stolen a couple of jackets, but not from the owner’s home trailer, which he doesn’t believe Brown entered.

He said Brown spoke first.

“The first thing he said is, ‘I mean nobody harm. I made a mistake back there,’” the owner said. “That’s when I went from total panic to realizing he was a broken man."

The owner said he could not determine whether Brown was armed, but said the long tail of Brown’s shirt could have hidden a weapon. He said he tried to talk Brown into giving himself up, even offering to drive him into town, but that Brown replied he did not want to turn himself into Anaconda Police Chief Bill Sather.

He similarly rejected turning himself in to Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester, the owner said.

“I told him, ‘If they catch you in those trees you are probably going to get shot. You should turn yourself in,’” the owner said. “He said he just couldn’t do that.”

Brown did not look well, he said. He told the owner he was freezing.

“He just looked like a sick, pathetic man,” the owner said. “I didn’t see him as an immediate threat. He did nothing but call me 'Sir.'"

Several people in Anaconda familiar with Brown told various news outlets in the wake of the Aug. 1 shooting that Brown suffered from sometimes severe mental health problems that might include post-traumatic stress disorder from his enlistment in the U.S. Army.

On Monday, Army spokesman Maj. Travis Shaw provided an overview of Brown’s service: “Michael Paul Brown was an Armor Crewman in the regular Army from January 2001 to May 2005 and in the Montana National Guard from April 2006 to March 2009. He deployed to Iraq from February 2004 to March 2005. He left the service in the rank of sergeant.”

The Army says an armor crewman is part of a team operating tanks and assault vehicles. The team fires weapons to destroy enemy positions.

Twenty years after his Iraq deployment, Brown was on the run after allegedly killing four people he reportedly knew at the Owl Bar. Brown lived at 815 E. Park St., next door to the bar.

Authorities said he fled after the shootings in a stolen white Ford pickup, with police in pursuit, and abandoned it in the vicinity of Garrity Mountain west of Anaconda. He had shot his victims with a rifle, authorities said.

For days, searchers combed the Garrity Mountain Wildlife Management Area and vicinity. They considered Brown armed and dangerous. Locals who knew the landscape said its thick aspen groves, lodgepole pine deadfall and other features made it an ideal place to hide — even though there was likely little for Brown to eat.

On the morning of Aug. 7, scores of law enforcement officers made a “hard push” through the area along Stumptown Road. Around 1 p.m., a strong thunderstorm drenched the area with cold rain accompanied by lightning. Rain continued after the thunderstorm passed.

The next morning, Stumptown Road was essentially deserted of law enforcement. Authorities established a command center at the former Wells Fargo bank in downtown Anaconda and covered portions of the bank windows with brown paper.

It seems likely now that authorities, including the U.S. Marshals Service, were planning the raid on the property where they ultimately captured Brown more than five miles west of Anaconda off Montana Highway 1 and about 200 yards west of the Ranch Bar.

During a Friday press conference in Anaconda after Brown’s capture, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said authorities believed Thursday’s concentrated search helped convince Brown to leave the Garrity Wildlife Management Area.

“We think that (push) was directly correlated to flushing him out today,” Knudsen said.

The property owner said Monday he did not know how long Brown had been in the camp trailer the owner kept for guests in a scenic spot, equipped with Adirondack chairs and a firepit, right along clear, cold Warm Springs Creek.

“Maybe an hour, maybe several hours,” he said. “There was food in there.”

Earlier in the week, law enforcement had conducted a routine search of the trailer, the owner said.

To reach the trailer, which had a broken lock, Brown had either waded directly across the creek, using the cover of streamside willows, or walked across a bridge on Stumptown Road. The latter option would have risked crossing open ground.

“I absolutely wanted him off my property,” the owner said Monday. “In hindsight, I wished I’d put a padlock on the trailer.”

He said he pondered calling police Thursday night but worried they’d be obligated to respond and would likely lose Brown in the dark if he slipped across the creek into the thick willows and returned to the wildlife management area.

He said he worried too that a night raid would be more perilous, for him and others in the vicinity.

“It would be more dangerous for my neighbors and there’d be a sh..storm and he’d be more stirred up,” the owner said. “I was trying to think on my feet."

He said he had no qualms about whether turning in Brown was the right thing to do.

“Absolutely not,” he said. "I called first thing Friday" to alert authorities.

The owner ruled out early on some sort of physical confrontation with Brown. He said he has children and grandchildren to think about.

“Everybody is John Wayne until that moment,” he said.

The owner said two law enforcement officials he spoke to Friday did not fault his decision to delay calling to report Brown's presence on the property.

Among the people he talked to was Lester, who recounted a portion of that conversation Tuesday.

“Sometimes, people find themselves in scary situations by happenstance," Lester said. "I told him I’m glad the situation ended peacefully.”

Authorities swarmed the area Friday and captured Brown around 2 p.m. He was said to be armed.

Brown made an initial appearance Monday, via video, in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Justice Court. Justice of the Peace Ken Walund set bail at $2 million. Brown is jailed at the Butte-Silver Bow County Detention Center. Court filings related to the case have been sealed.

Meanwhile, the owner, who said he grew up in Ekalaka, said he had acquired the narrow rural property to get away from the sort of drama that unfolded Friday. He said he never anticipated encountering the potentially dangerous dilemma posed by Brown.

“This isn’t my thing,” he said. “I didn’t sign up for this. I just want to be left alone. I want peace and quiet.”