Search on for man who shot 3 on Crow Reservation

BILLINGS — The search for an armed suspect in a triple shooting on the Crow Reservation spanned the southeast Montana countryside Wednesday as people were warned to stay inside for their safety.

Authorities were seeking Sheldon Bernard Chase, 22, in the deaths of a his grandmother and a young couple at a rural residence about 10 miles outside of Lodge Grass, a town of about 500 people near the Wyoming border.

AP Photo/The Billings Gazette, James Woodcock

Law enforcement officers remove a shooting victim's body from a home about nine miles south west of Lodge Grass Tuesday near the Crow Reservation.

Big Horn County Commissioner John Pretty On Top said schools there re-opened Wednesday morning but classes were held behind locked doors.

Police, game wardens and tribal authorities are combing county roads looking for the suspect, Pretty On Top said.

The investigation is being led by the FBI. It remains unclear what led to the shootings or how Chase was identified as a suspect. He had apparently been living with his grandmother.

Chase has a history of mental illness and is considered armed and dangerous. He is described as 6 feet, 2 inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes and weighing 230 pounds. He may be driving a Toyota Corolla or Celica with South Dakota license plates or a 2000 red Volkswagen Jetta.

"Our concern is he may be out of the area and driving any one of those vehicles," said FBI spokeswoman Deborah Bertram.

AP Photo/The Billings Gazette, James Woodcock

Police remove a shooting victim's body from a home about nine miles south west of Lodge Grass Tuesday, at the Crow Reservation.

Anyone who sees Chase was asked not to approach him but instead call law enforcement. Meanwhile, authorities throughout the state, as well as in Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota have been notified of the manhunt.

Chase had family on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota and authorities there were alerted, said Crow tribal secretary Scott Russell.

Russell warned against speculation on what sparked the shooting until all the facts are known.

Russell said he could not recall a tragedy of such magnitude among the close-knit tribe.

"This is pretty devastating to the community and the Crow Nation," he said Wednesday. "We are all in shock.

AP Photo/FBI

This image provided by the FBI shows Sheldon Bernard Chase who is wanted for the shooting of three people Tuesday on the Crow Reservation.

Public buildings across the reservation were locked down at about 1:30 or 2 p.m. Tuesday when the search for Chase was first launched. Pretty On Top said security guards continued patrolling outside Lodge Grass High School Wednesday as a precaution.

Pretty On Top said he was distantly related to the victims and the suspect — as are many in the small reservation community.

"Between the clan system, we're all related some way. It was a terrible thing to happen," he said.