The killers of Council, Idaho rancher Jack Yantis will soon return to work after being cleared of criminal charges by Idaho Attorney General Larry Wasden.

Nearly ten months have elapsed since Yantis, 62, was cut down by a twelve-shot fusillade alongside Highway 95 after he had been summoned by the Adams County Sheriff's Office to put down a bull that had been struck by a car. The deputies who responded to the accident, Brian Wood and Cody Roland, shot the bull, but neither was able to kill it. Roland called the sheriff's dispatch to have Yantis kill the animal.

The collision with the bull occurred early on the evening of November 1. Yantis, his wife Donna, and their friend Rowdy Paradis, arrived on the scene at 7:22 PM. Yantis was armed with a .204 bolt action rifle; Paradis was driving a skid-loader that would be used to haul away the dead bull. Yantis approached the stricken animal, passing Deputy Wood, who was armed with a .223 rifle that had been ineffective in dealing with the bull.

"Get that piece of sh*t away from my animal," Yantis instructed the deputy, as he approached the bull and lined up a kill-shot near its head. Mrs. Yantis and Mr. Paradis testified that he had chosen an angle that was safe; Wood and Roland – who had been impotently flinging lead at the beast – later claimed that they were worried that the angle Yantis selected potentially endangered people to the south of the accident scene.