Montana man arrested for intentionally driving motorcycle off road, killing driver

HELENA, Mont. — Carbon County officials said a Montana man was arrested after witnesses said he intentionally and repeatedly struck three motorcycles with his car in southern Montana, sending one off the road and killing its driver.

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

A silver car initially tried to run two brothers off the road while they were riding their motorcycles near the town of Rockvale early Tuesday afternoon, court documents say. The car hit one of the drivers in the leg, but they managed to avoid being forced off the road, they told investigators. A man reported that the driver made a U-turn and drove on the wrong side of the divided highway in pursuit, forcing him to jump over a curb to avoid being hit.

The brothers described how the driver “yelled wildly” and confronted them, according to court documents.

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 of Switzerland, the sheriff's office said. Peter's passenger suffered a “traffic accident” 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 the passenger side mirror, court records show. A mirror cover was found at the scene of the accident.

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 respond to a telephone message seeking comment Thursday.

Gambale told investigators he believed he was being harassed by a motorcycle gang after he encountered a motorcycle on Interstate 90 near Laurel, Montana, court documents say. However, his version of events did not match witness accounts, Carbon County Prosecutor Alex Nixon wrote in his motion for impeachment.