A Billings man is accused of helping another man steal a car from a Bozeman casino and leading police on a high-speed chase before crashing in Logan.
Kirk Bradley Waddingham, 28, is charged with theft and criminal endangerment, both felonies. He appeared by video Wednesday in Gallatin County Justice Court. His bail was set at $50,000.
Travis Nelson Migneault, a co-defendant in the case, is being held on $50,000 bail for violating his probation.
After the car Migneault and Waddingham were driving crashed, the two were on the run in the Three Forks area before police arrested them on Monday.
On Aug. 5, Bozeman police responded to the Jackpot Casino for a report of a red GMC Sierra truck stolen from the parking lot.
Police reviewed video of the theft and saw a red Chevy Impala parked next to the truck. A man with a mohawk haircut wearing a Rolling Stones long-sleeve t-shirt got out of the car, got into the truck and drove away following the Impala, court documents say.
Later that day a deputy driving west on Interstate 90 spotted the Impala and tried stopping it for inactive registration and expired license plates.
The driver of the car slowed down slightly, but accelerated and led law enforcement on a chase with speeds of up to 110 mph.
The driver tried turning north onto Logan Trident Road but crashed. The driver and the passenger of the car were gone before a deputy got to it.
Witnesses described seeing two men get out of the car and flee on foot. One man jumped off the Logan bridge into the Gallatin River. The other man ran across the bridge.
Law enforcement was unable to find them.
A Gallatin County deputy searched the car and found a Rolling Stones t-shirt. The deputy said it matched the shirt worn by the man seen stealing the truck in the video.
The next day, police received a report from a woman who said two men with “scruffy looking facial hair” asked her for water on Pyfer Road. The men told her their car had broken down and they were on their way to Three Forks.
A biker told the deputy seeing the same two men on Carpenter Road. The biker described one man as having a mohawk haircut and the other had tattoos on his neck.
Later that evening, a separate caller reported seeing the men walking on a bridge near Milwaukee Fishing Access wearing clothes similar to previous descriptions.
The men fled on foot when they saw a deputy respond to the area. The next day, when officers responded to a call of suspicious men in Manhattan, the men evaded police again.
Waddingham and Migneault were arrested later that day.
On Tuesday, Waddingham’s father told an officer he was looking for Waddingham’s red Chevrolet Impala, matching the car that was involved in the theft of the truck and the subsequent chase and crash.
When Waddingham was cited for theft, he told officers that he was in the process of buying the red Impala, further connecting him to the high-speed chase. Officers told him the theft charge was for the red truck, not the car.
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