BILLINGS — Michael Joseph Gambale has been charged in Carbon County District Court with four felonies, including deliberate homicide, for allegedly running two motorcyclists off the road in separate incidents near Rockvale and south of Belfry on Tuesday, September 24, 2024, killing one man.
Gambale, 52 years old, was arrested in Cody, Wyoming, on Tuesday after law enforcement received a high-priority message to be on the lookout for a driver involved in several road-rage incidents and a hit-and-run crash in Carbon County.
He was arrested near a gas station on Yellowstone Avenue driving the vehicle identified in the hit-and-run incidents, following what Cody police described as a "high-risk traffic stop."
The incidents began early Tuesday afternoon, when two motorcyclists reported a silver Mitsubishi pulled up next to them in the passing lane as they were heading south on Highway 310 north of Rockvale.
According to court documents, the vehicle swerved toward one of them in an apparent attempt to cause a wreck. The rider said he was an experienced rider and able to evade the car.
The vehicle also swerved at the second motorcyclist, striking him in the leg and causing abrasions. The riders were able to pull off the road at Rockvale, at which point, according to documents, the vehicle made a U-turn on the highway and again tried to hit them while driving in the wrong lane. The suspect then drove away, heading south toward Bridger.
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The two men, who are brothers, told law enforcement they feared for their lives and believed they survived because they were good riders.
Carbon County sheriff's deputies were called to the second crash around 2:30 p.m. at mile marker 8 south of Belfry. Witnesses told them they saw a silver Mitsubishi swerve twice into a Harley Davidson motorcycle with Virginia license plates and two occupants, forcing it to crash, according to court documents.
One of the occupants, Martin Hans Peter, a 70-year-old man visiting from Switzerland, died at the scene, according to Carbon County Sheriff Josh McQuillan. The second rider was taken to a Billings hospital.
During questioning in Cody following his arrest, Gambale said he believed he was being harassed by a motorcycle gang on Interstate 90 in Laurel, according to court documents.
He said the two brothers in Rockvale were preventing him from passing and making obscene gestures at him, though authorities noted his account did not match that of independent witnesses at the scene, according to court documents.
The license plates on the silver Mitsubishi registered to Gambale were from Yellowstone County in Montana, but it was unclear where he lives.
According to the Cowboy State Daily, he lived in Cody as of November 2023, when he was arrested and pleaded no contest to charges of illegally firing a crossbow onto the runway of the Yellowstone Regional Airport.
He was arrested again September 17 on a warrant for allegedly violating his probation because he wasn't following court rules about prescriptions from the Veteran's Affairs office, but he was released Monday on a bond, according to Cowboy State Daily.
