A woman who was shot as she ran from the gunman robbing her family on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation was recovering from surgery Thursday, while her relatives struggled with how to tell her that her parents are dead.
Doctors operated on a bullet lodged in 26-year-old Jorah Shane's spine. The man who shot her killed her father, Jason, and mother, Tana, on Wednesday after they stopped to help him and he told them he ran out of gas, according to Ada Shane, Jason's sister.
Police in Wyoming arrested Jesus Deniz Mendoza, 18, about 120 miles away from the shooting. FBI agents arrived Thursday to start proceedings to bring him back to Montana to face charges, the Park County Sheriff's Office said.
Tana Shane, 47, drove by a young man who appeared to be stranded Wednesday morning, Ada Shane said, relaying the story as told to her by her niece. The man said he had run out of fuel, and Tana Shane gave him a ride to a nearby gas station, but it was closed.
"He's only 18, and he looked like an innocent boy," Ada Shane said. "Both my brother and sister-in-law have big hearts."
Tana Shane went by her house in the small town of Pryor on the reservation, picked up her husband and daughter and all four began driving back toward the stranded car, Ada Shane said. They didn't get far before the man pulled a gun and held it to 51-year-old Jason Shane's temple.
He ordered the father to stop the car and told everybody to get out, Ada Shane said. He told the family to give him their money, but the family said they had only change because they recently returned from a religious revival in Window Rock, Arizona.
Tana Shane told her daughter in their Native American language to run. Jorah Shane told her aunt that she heard a shot, started running, then heard bullets whizzing by her head. She fell, heard another shot, and started running again toward a church just as a car was pulling out.
She ran to the car, and the frightened driver leaped out, Ada Shane said. Jorah Shane jumped in the driver's seat and drove to her house with the shooter still firing at her, the aunt said.
Jorah Shane was later hospitalized. A bullet had grazed her head and she had a gunshot wound to the back. She didn't know as of Thursday that her parents had been killed in the shooting.
"Last night before she went in, she told everyone to go look for her mom, she's hiding in the field," Ada Shane said.
The aunt said relatives have kept the hospital room's television off and she doesn't know how they will break the news to her.
FBI spokesman Todd Palmer confirmed Jason and Tana Shane were killed but would not confirm or deny Ada Shane's version of events. He also declined to identify Jorah Shane as the wounded person, saying the FBI does not provide information about potential witnesses.
The U.S. Attorney's Office and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have declined to comment on the shooting. The federal agencies are investigating because the shooting happened on a reservation.
Another relative of the Shane family corroborated Ada Shane's version of events in an interview with The Billings Gazette.
Mendoza, the suspect, who is also known just as Jesus Deniz, was arrested in Wyoming after a sheriff's deputy spotted the vehicle Montana authorities had alerted.
It is not clear whether Mendoza has an attorney. Park County court officials said a hearing had not been set for Mendoza on Thursday.
Messages left on two phone numbers listed under Mendoza's name were not returned.