An 18-year-old man suspected of killing two people and wounding another on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana was apprehended between Meeteetse and Burlington on Wednesday, authorities said.

Jesus Deniz Mendoza of Worland remained in custody at the Park County Detention Center on Thursday while federal law enforcement authorities continued to investigate.

Deniz is being investigated in connection with the shootings of a couple and their adult daughter near Pryor, Montana, according the Billings Gazette. The couple died and their daughter was seriously injured, the Gazette reported. The couple's nephew told the newspaper that his family members had stopped the help the man, suspected to be Deniz, after his car ran out of gas.

The shooting was reported shortly before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. Authorities soon sent out an alert asking nearby law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for a 2006 silver/gray Pontiac G6 with Montana plates.

A Park County Sheriff's deputy spotted a vehicle matching that description around 11:49 a.m. and began following it, sheriff's office spokesman Lance Mathess said in a news release. With the suspect reported to be armed and dangerous, the deputy decided to wait for backup before trying to stop the Pontiac, Mathess said. The deputy followed the car south on Wyoming Highway 120, starting just north of the Stage Stop, until it turned northeast onto County Road 3LE (better known as the Burlington cut across). At around 12:30 p.m., about 12 miles into the cut across, a trooper from the Wyoming Highway Patrol arrived and the two officers stopped the vehicle and arrested Deniz without incident, Mathess said.

In a statement, Park County Sheriff Scott Steward praised the decisions made by his deputy and the responding trooper.

“The decision by the deputy to wait for backup was absolutely the right thing to do,” Steward said.  “And I want to thank the members of the Wyoming Highway Patrol for their immediate response.  This was a joint effort all the way.”

The homicide investigation is being handled jointly by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Crow Agency, Montana, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). FBI agents arrived in Cody on Wednesday to begin proceedings to transfer Mendoza back to Montana.

Pryor is a community of more than 600 people that's about 33 miles south of Billings and roughly 17 miles east of Edgar in Big Horn County, Montana.