U.S. man arrested for killing driver and running motorcycle off the road

HELENA, Mont. –

A Montana man has been arrested after witnesses said he intentionally and repeatedly swerved his car at three motorcycles in south-central Montana, running one off the road and killing its driver, officials in Carbon County said.

Prosecutors want to charge Michael J. Gambale with one count of deliberate homicide and three counts of attempted deliberate homicide, according to a motion filed Wednesday in state District Court in Red Lodge. He was arrested in Cody, Wyoming, on Tuesday afternoon and faces an extradition hearing there on Friday, court officials said.

A silver car first tried to run two brothers off the road while they were riding their motorcycles near the town of Rockvale early Tuesday afternoon, court records said. The car hit one of the riders on the leg, but they were able to avoid being forced off the road, they told investigators. One man reported the driver made a U-turn and travelled on the wrong side of the divided highway to pursue him, forcing him to jump a curb to avoid being struck.

The brothers described the driver as “yelling wildly” and flipping them off, court records said.

About 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, a silver car forced another motorcycle off the road near the town of Belfry, killing 70-year-old Martin Hans Peter from Switzerland, the sheriff’s office said. Peter’s passenger suffered “road rash” and was hospitalized in Billings.

When Gambale was arrested, his car had damage on the driver’s side and was missing a plastic cover for his passenger side mirror, court records said. A mirror cover was found at the scene of the fatal crash.

Gambale, who remained jailed in Cody on Thursday, also faces a hearing Friday on a Wyoming probation violation, officials said.

Gambale’s attorney in the Wyoming case, Rives White, did not return a phone message on Thursday seeking comment.

Gambale told investigators he believed he was being harassed by a motorcycle gang after encountering a motorcycle on Interstate 90 near Laurel, Montana, court records said. However, his version of events did not match witness statements, Carbon County Attorney Alex Nixon wrote in his motion to file the charges.