A shooting on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana left a Good Samaritan couple dead and their daughter hospitalized. The suspect, who took off with their car, was later arrested in Wyoming.
Tana and Jason Shane were shot and killed Wednesday morning while helping a stranger who they believed had run out of gas in the town of Pryor, located on the Crow Nation reservation,
reported Native News Online.
The couple's daughter, Jorah, 24, came along with the couple to assist, and was also shot. She escaped, and was soon rushed to a local hospital.
Just hours later, Jesus Deniz Mendoza, 18, was arrested eight miles north of Meeteetse, Wyoming around 12:30 p.m.,
reported the Billings Gazette.
"Both my brother and sister-in-law have big hearts," Ada Shane
told The Associated Press. "They're always helping someone else."
Bryce Hugs, a nephew of the dead couple who acted as the family spokesman, told the Billings Gazette that Tana Shane initially saw a man who looked like he was stranded on Pryor Gap Road and went home to pick up her husband before returning to help.
Hugs told the newspaper that the man opened fire on the couple and the daughter — who had tagged along — when they returned to offer assistance. The Associated Press said the suspect demanded money before shooting all three.
"[He] killed both of them and then shot the daughter," Hugs said. "It grazed her in the head and when she took off [he] shot her in the back."
Jorah Shane escaped into a nearby school and found a person in a vehicle that gave her a ride home and returned to the scene with other family members, Hugs said. Jorah was eventually transported to a hospital in Billings.
FBI special agent Larry McGrail II, told the AP that Deniz confessed to shooting the three with a rifle and leaving in their vehicle.
"Deniz told the interviewing agents that he shot the victims because he was getting tired of waiting around, and because the daughter had laughed at him," McGrail said in a statement.
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