San Diego, CA: Man who shot himself and ex-wife in 2008 dies

BY DEBBI BAKER, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2010 AT 12:19 A.M.

EAST COUNTY — A man who authorities say stabbed and shot his former wife to death after an acrimonious divorce almost two years ago and then tried to kill himself with a shotgun has died.

Frank Bass, 54, died Feb. 13 at Edgemoor Hospital in Santee from complications from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the abdomen, officials with the Medical Examiner’s Office said. Both of his legs had been amputated at the knees and all of his fingers had been amputated at mid-knuckle because of circulation problems associated with his wounds, sheriff’s homicide Lt. Dennis Brugos said.

Bass was suspected of killing his former wife, Ginger Bass, 51, at her home in Lakeside on May 31, 2008, three days after the dissolution of their eight-year marriage was finalized.

Ginger Bass had a restraining order against her husband after she claimed he raped her, threatened to kill himself and promised that the only way they would be apart would be through death, according to her divorce filing. He had been ordered to have no contact and to stay 100 yards away. Brugos said that Frank Bass was sending e-mails to his former wife almost every day, saying that he did not want to go on without her and no longer wanted to live.

Ginger Bass was a real estate broker and manager of the Re/Max Associates branch in La Mesa. She had lived in Alaska for several years, where she and her first husband adopted three siblings from Bogota, Colombia. Her cousin Sheryl Parsons said Ginger Bass once worked as a truck driver on the Alaskan pipeline, designed and built log cabins and was a stained-glass artist.

Reached by phone at her Utah home, Parsons said she had not heard that Frank Bass had died. She said the family has tried to move on and is trying not to look back. As for Frank Bass, she said, “I feel he got his just rewards.”

Frank Bass worked as a home inspector and property refurbisher. He was never charged with a crime related to the attack because of his medical condition.