Two of the four bail bondsmen involved in the fatal shooting of a fugitive in Missoula earlier this month were unlicensed, having failed the required test numerous times, according to the Montana State Auditor’s office.
The two other bail bondsmen, who have since been charged with felonies, received their temporary licenses less than a month before the shooting.
At the time of the shooting March 4, the auditor’s office was already investigating Mr. Bail, the Billings company that employed the bondsmen, for using unlicensed bondsmen, the state agency’s lead investigator told Montana Free Press this week.
The state’s investigation into Mr. Bail and its findings have not been previously reported.
Following the death of Joshua Wykle, the auditor’s office suspended the licenses of Mr. Bail, its manager Anna Yarbro and the two licensed bondsmen involved in the shooting, Brandon Wakefield and Austin Mistretta. The state has also ordered Mr. Bail and Yarbro to cease and desist all operations in Montana.
On the day of the shooting, Wykle, 41, was parked at the Town Pump on Reserve Street in Missoula when the bondsmen pulled up behind him, according to charging documents that describe video footage of the incident.
Wakefield and Mistretta, along with fellow Mr. Bail employees Jorrell Nagel and Ryan Smith, came from Billings to apprehend Wykle, the document said.
State law allows licensed bail bondsmen to use “reasonable force” to arrest and detain their clients who have violated a condition of their release.
Wykle was originally charged with drug possession and driving under the influence in 2024 in Lewis and Clark County, according to court records.
He had been initially released without bail but was arrested in September 2025 after failing to appear in court. He was released from jail soon after posting a $20,000 bond through Mr. Bail.
Lewis & Clark County authorities issued a warrant for his arrest Feb. 19, after he failed to appear for a pre-trial hearing, according to court filings.
Video footage showed that while at the Town Pump on Reserve Street, the four men, all wearing body armor and belts with firearms, approached Wykle’s vehicle.
Mistretta pointed a gun at the vehicle, according to the documents. Wakefield allegedly pointed a gun at Wykle and told police he fired toward Wykle, who died at the scene.
Missoula County prosecutors have charged Wakefield with deliberate homicide and Mistretta with attempted assault with a weapon. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Bail is a Virginia-based bonding company with nearly 30 locations nationwide, according to its website. The Billings office did not return a call requesting comment Wednesday.
The shooting in Missoula and the complaints against Mr. Bail came after a substantial reduction in the number of incidents with bounty hunters in Montana, Ted Bidon, bureau chief and head of investigations at the state auditor’s office, told MTFP.
The decrease follows the passage of a 2023 law regulating bounty hunters. The auditor’s office licenses and oversees insurance in the state, which includes bonding companies.
In Montana, when bail is set by a judge, the defendant can pay the full amount in cash or work with a bail bond agent who will post the bond for a nonrefundable fee, typically 10% to 15%.
If a defendant misses a court appearance, the court can issue a warrant for their arrest, and the bail bonding company can hire recovery agents, or bounty hunters, to locate and return the defendant to custody.
If a defendant isn’t found, the bonding company is out the amount it posted to guarantee the defendant’s appearance in court.
A bail bond, or surety bond, differs from other forms of insurance regulated by the auditor’s office because of how bail bondsmen interact with the public, Bidon said.
“The real distinguishing factor that makes it so important to keep a tighter constraint on it is when you go buy your auto insurance, if you don’t pay the premium, no one is going to show up in body armor and guns and drag you off to jail,” he said.
On March 4, video footage showed Wykle entering his car, a Saturn, parked at the Town Pump on Reserve Street, before a Honda pulled up behind him, according to the court documents.
Mistretta and Nagel got out of the Honda, with Mistretta pointing what appeared to be a rifle at the Saturn. Wakefield got out of the car and approached the driver’s side of the Saturn with his handgun pointed at Wykle.
Smith then approached the driver’s side of the Saturn. When Nagel was walking behind the Saturn, the car began to reverse. Wakefield then raised his gun into a “shooter’s stance,” court documents said.
Wykle died at the scene, despite Wakefield’s attempts to revive him, records said. According to charging documents, the other three men, when asked by responding Missoula police officers, identified Wakefield as the shooter.
Wakefield also told officers that he shot toward the victim, the documents allege. Two spent shell casings were found at the scene, and officers took Wakefield’s gun into evidence.
Wakefield, who pleaded not guilty to deliberate homicide, and Mistretta, who pleaded not guilty to attempted assault with a weapon, were issued temporary bail bondsman licenses Feb. 11, Bidon told MTFP.
The men had one year to complete the required training, and while they likely had started, those records would be kept by their employer, he said.
Nagel and Smith were unlicensed, having failed the licensing test multiple times in February, but both were armed and wearing body armor that identified them as “fugitive recovery agents” on the day Wykle was killed, according to the order from the auditor’s office suspending the company.
Neither Nagel nor Smith has been charged in connection with the shooting.
Wakefield’s bail was initially set at $1 million, but the judge granted his attorney’s request to reduce that amount to $200,000 at his arraignment. He was released after posting a surety bond March 16. Wakefield’s next hearing is set for April 28.
Mistretta was released without bail sometime between March 4 and his arraignment on March 16, according to the Missoula County Clerk of District Court’s office. Mistretta’s next hearing is May 21.
The commissioner’s office began investigating Mr. Bail in October, after receiving a complaint from the Billings Police Department that an administrative assistant for the company was issuing bonds without a license, according to the suspension order.
Yarbro, the manager of Mr. Bail’s Billings office, directed her administrative assistant, Bobbie Helmey, to sell, solicit or negotiate bail bonds even though she does not have a license, according to the suspension order.
Helmey presented herself as a bondsman and worked in that regard without a valid license, investigators with the auditor’s office concluded.
According to the auditor’s investigation, Mr. Bail had also previously dispatched Wakefield, Mistretta and Nagel, all unlicensed at the time, to enforce a bond in Big Timber in late December.
An attorney for Yarbro and Mr. Bail requested a hearing to appeal the license suspension in mid-March, after the shooting in Missoula, according to documents posted on the insurance commissioner’s website.
It’s unclear when that hearing will be held or when the investigation will be completed.
Depending on the outcome of the investigation and hearing, the commissioner could fine the bondsmen if they are found to have violated the relevant state law, in addition to any suspensions, Bidon said.
Bidon said the investigation into Mr. Bail has been the first major issue involving bondsmen since the 2023 law went into effect. Mr. Bail was first licensed in the state in November 2017.
Criminal charges against bondsmen were more common before a 2023 law requiring bounty hunters to be licensed.
Former Auditor Troy Downing, now the representative for Montana’s eastern congressional district, wrote in 2022 that Montana’s “wild west” was alive and well as “a rogue subset of bounty hunters who commit crimes and abuses against defendants on bail, their families and the public.”
Bond companies arguably had “unilateral authority to revoke bail at any time and for any reason,” Downing wrote at the time. A 2024 Montana Supreme Court ruling found bail bondsmen do not have the “unfettered” right to arrest a client without a court warrant.
The ACLU of Montana in 2019 sued a bail bond company and its hired bounty hunters after they entered the home of a Lolo resident, his wife and their then 4-year-old daughter and held them at gunpoint while taking the man into custody in 2017. The case was settled in October 2019.
In 2021, a Butte resident was killed after bondsman Jay Hubber and his partner Nicholas Jaeger entered his home in search of a fugitive. Both men were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 2024.
A Great Falls bounty hunter was charged with several felonies after driving head-on into traffic, swerving lanes and crashing his vehicle into the car of a fugitive he was chasing in 2022, The Electric reported at the time.
In 2023, the state Legislature passed House Bill 62, which requires bounty hunters to be licensed and outlines application and training requirements.
Bidon said there may be some tweaks to the law in the next legislative session brought by the bail bonding industry to “tighten things up.” Bidon said he hopes those changes would prevent another incident like the shooting March 4.
“Someone is entering into a contract between the bail bondsman, the court and themselves, and the bail bondsman has a legal right based on that contract that if they don’t show up to court, they can go get them,” he said. “That’s all well and good, but [it] needs to be done in a way that’s safe and respectful and with no harm to the community. We’re working really hard to make sure that happens.”
(Mara Silvers contributed reporting to this story.)
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at
