Montana authorities are continuing to investigate the motive for this past weekend’s casino shooting, which left three people dead at Stateline Casino near Bainville. Two of the deceased are a husband and wife.
The dead include the shooter’s wife, Jennifer Mann, 49, and the shooter, Bradford Mann, 56, both of whom resided in North Dakota, and Scot Panasuk, 63, of Bainville.
Bradford Mann shot the two victims and then shot himself. All three were deceased when deputies arrived on Saturday evening.
It is believed the shooting took place after a domestic dispute between the husband and wife, Roosevelt County Sheriff Jason Frederick told the Billings Gazette, a local newspaper.
Man Shot First
Bradford Mann apparently followed Jennifer Mann and Scot Panasuk to Colby’s Casino Saturday evening, Frederick told the newspaper.
The two men got out of their vehicles and began to argue in a parking lot, according to a surveillance video which captured the dispute, Frederick said. The two had what was described as a brief physical altercation, KULR, a local TV station, reported.
A short time later, Bradford Mann fatally shot Panasuk. Then, he shot Jennifer Mann dead while she was still in the car. That was followed by him turning the firearm on himself.
All three bodies were examined during autopsies over the weekend. Deputies also seized evidence from the crime scene, the Gazette reported.
Authorities from throughout the region were notified quickly about the shooting. The first to respond was believed to be an off-duty Fort Peck Tribes police sergeant. He was in a nearby casino.
Casinos Reopened
Both Stateline Casino and nearby Colby’s Casino were closed after the shootings. They reopened Monday. Bainville is a small town in Eastern Montana near the North Dakota border. Its population is only a few hundred people.
Nationwide, other murder-suicides have taken place at gaming properties. One of the most infamous was on Oct. 1, 2017, when Stephen Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nev., killed or injured several hundred people attending the Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.
He was perched on the 32nd floor in the Mandalay Bay Hotel and fired more than 1,000 bullets. He then fatally shot himself. No motive for the mass shooting was ever revealed. In September, 2020, MGM Resorts International and its insurers settled with shooting victims for $800 million.
More recently, in March, a Wynn Las Vegas security officer and an employee of the hotel-casino died after an apparent murder-suicide in a parking garage at the Strip location.
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