Man accused of shooting family recently released from jai

HELENA (AP) - An 18-year-old man accused of shooting a family that stopped to help him on a Montana roadside was released from a Wyoming jail two weeks earlier while facing unrelated burglary and drug charges, a court official said Friday.

Jesus Deniz, also known as Jesus Deniz Mendoza, made his first court appearance Friday on a murder warrant in U.S. District Court in Billings. The Worland, Wyoming, man is accused in the shooting deaths of Jason Shane, 41, and his wife, Tana Shane, 47.

The couple's daughter, 26-year-old Jorah Shane, was shot in the back while trying to run from the gunman Wednesday in the small town of Pryor on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation. She is recovering in a Billings hospital, a relative said.

Deniz and a public defender appeared at the brief hearing in Billings, where Deniz told a magistrate judge he had reviewed the charges against him. U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby scheduled a preliminary hearing for Aug. 5 and ordered Deniz into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.