By Shavonne Potts and Mark Wineka
spotts@salisburypost.com
The wife of Michael Timothy Bost, the Granite Quarry man who was shot to death in Arkansas last week after a police chase, said he’d been in a downward spiral since the death of his mother in October 2005.
Bost’s sister said he also was affected dramatically in 1978 when his 5-year-old son from a first marriage died of cancer.
“He had issues, just like everybody else,” Jane Basinger, his sister, said Wednesday. “A lot of troubles in his life, and a lot of things that didn’t go his way.”
Bost, 55, was a U.S. Army veteran and a jack-of-all-trades ó a painter, carpenter and handyman.
He often worked for older people, and if they couldn’t pay him, Bost would offer to take something in trade or let it go, Basinger said.
“He tried his best to help them,” she added.
Bost spent a lot of time in flea markets, and that might have been a reason he was in Arkansas, though family members weren’t sure.
Bost lived in Granite Quarry with Margie Hall.
He was shot Friday after he fired at police in White Hall, Ark. Authorities had been checking vehicles at a truck stop when they noticed Bost’s truck with an out-of-state license.
Officers discovered he was armed. Bost drove off, leading police on a chase. When he fired at the police, officers returned fire, killing him.
His wife, Peggy Bost, said they had been separated for nine years. She heard about her husband’s death from his sister, Jane.
“We couldn’t believe it, whenever they called and told us,” Basinger said.
Peggy Bost called her husband “Mike,” while his family usually referred to him as “Tim,” his middle name.
His nickname was “8-Ball.”
Peggy Bost said he had “issues.”
“I think Mike had a mental problem,” she said. “He could be the sweetest person on the earth and then devious.”
She confirmed that he would run if confronted by law enforcement. Bost had run from authorities in the past, including Granite Quarry Police, and had a pending case in Cabarrus County for fleeing to elude arrest.
For all of his dealings with law enforcement, Mike still had “some good points,” Peggy Bost said.
She and Bost were still on good terms.
“We weren’t enemies, we were friends,” she said.
If they saw each other on the street, they spoke, Peggy added.
She separated from Bost because she couldn’t live with his troubles.
“He was a good-natured person, but at times he just flipped,” Peggy Bost said. “The reason I could not live with him was he got out of hand. He was always running off and always getting into trouble. I couldn’t live that life.”
Basinger, his younger sister by 12 years, said she last saw Bost about three weeks ago.
“He loved his family, but he just had a lot of bad things happen to him and, unfortunately, he made some bad decisions in his life,” said Basinger, who has a Gold Hill address and lives close to Richfield in Stanly County.
Michael Timothy Bost graduated from Kings Mountain High School, Basinger said. In the Army, he was involved with military intelligence, she said.
His mother was the late, Dorothy Bost, and his father is the Rev. Carlee Bost of Gold Hill. His brother, Jonathan, lives in Cherryville.
Bost said a kidnapping Bost was convicted of when he was in his 20s occurred before she met him. He had told her it involved a girl he dated who began seeing a policeman. He went into a church where he found the police officer. He beat him up and poured acid on the man.
Peggy said her husband told her that story, but she had no way of knowing if it were true. “That was a subject that came up one time and was never brought up any more,” she said.
The family has been unable to make funeral arrangements because Bost’s body has remained in Arkansas for an autopsy. Basinger said an investigation also is under way to determine if authorities used any undue force in the incident.