PALMETTO, Fla. — An arrest has been made in a deadly December 2018 road rage incident in Palmetto.
Back on December 6, the Florida Highway Patrol responded to a pedestrian-struck call on Bayshore Road west of U.S. 41 in Palmetto. State troopers say a 2018 Honda Accord driven by 32-year-old Bradley Yost was driving in front of a 2015 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck driven by 46-year-old John Cray.
According to authorities, an altercation between Yost and Cray led to Yost stopping his car on the side of Bayshore Road and Cray stopping his pickup truck next to it.
The FHP says Yost left his car and walked in the roadway toward Cray's truck, and that's when Cray accelerated, hitting Yost.
Cray kept driving and dragging Yost, who was stuck underneath the pickup truck, for over a mile, state troopers said. Yost died from the injuries he suffered.
After a lengthy investigation, state troopers arrested Cray on June 3, charging him with manslaughter involving a weapon and leaving the scene with death.
When ABC Action News covered Yost's death last December, our reporters were told Yost was a regular at Peggy's Corral, a local lounge in Palmetto
Friends gathered there during an organized memorial following his death. They described him as their "big teddy bear."
“He was a good guy, everyone loved him, he’d give you the shirt off his back,” Debbie Toner, the owner of Peggy’s Corral said in December 2018. “That’s just who he was, and he was a happy guy.”
Toner said Yost was a beloved local musician playing the bar circuits around Bradenton and Manatee County.
