The coworker who was with ‘General Hospital’ actor Johnny Wactor the night he was killed said he died in her arms after one of the people who tried to steal a catalytic converter from his car fatally shot him in downtown Los Angeles.
Wactor, who played Brando Corbin on the daytime soap opera, was heading home from a bartending shift when he and his coworker noticed a group of people standing around his car near Hope Street and Pico Boulevard around 3:30 a.m. She wrote on Instagram that they initially thought his car was being towed. Moments later, someone from the group opened fire.
“Everything happened in the blink of an eye,” his colleague Anita Joy wrote in a post on Wednesday.
The suspects in Wactor’s murder remain at large, as do the Los Angeles Police Department has asked for help they find.
According to the LAPD, they had propped up Wactor’s car with a floor jack when he and his colleague saw them. Researchers have determined it they tried to steal a catalytic converter from the vehicle.
In an Instagram post, Joy wrote that she and Wactor approached the group “cautiously” before questioning them.
“We posed no threat and Johnny remained calm, as he always did, simply saying it was his car and that they should leave, with his hands open at his sides in peace,” Joy wrote. “Johnny stood between me and the man who shot him – when I heard the shot ring out into the night, he fell back forcefully into my arms and as I grabbed him I shouted ‘hunny, okay?’ And he just replied, “No! Shot!”
“We fell to the street, where I pushed my legs under him and tried to hold his body up while screaming for help and yelling at him to stay with me,” she wrote.
Joy wrote that one of the security guards at the bar where they worked then walked across the street and saw them. He ran over while calling 911 and they tied a denim jacket around Wactor’s body to stop the bleeding.
The guard also tried to revive Wactor, she wrote.
“It was too close, too extreme a wound to survive, but my god, he fought to stay.”
He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Joy called for justice for her friend’s murder, saying she is “heartbroken” and “angry” over his loss.
“He was senselessly murdered by a coward who reacted without regard for the beautiful life he was living,” she wrote.
According to the LAPD, the three suspects were all wearing dark-colored clothing and were driving a dark-colored sedan as they fled north on Hope Street.
A statement released Sunday by Wactor’s talent agency, BRS/Gage, described him as a talented actor “devoted to his craft” and also “a true moral example to all who knew him.”
“Standard for hard work, tenacity and a never-give-up attitude,” the statement read. “Through the highs and lows of a challenging profession, he always kept his chin up and continued to strive to be the best he could be.”
Joy wrote that Wactor had a rare ability “to make everyone feel so special in his eyes,” and reflected fondly on their friendship and their time working together. She added that he had a “magnetic” energy and said he “treated everyone with love, respect and compassion and that he really ‘saw’ you.”
“My boyfriend of 8 years went from laughing together, working side by side, leaving our bartending shift and walking to our cars, to him dying in my arms on the streets of DTLA in the dark hours of 3am,” Joy wrote . “He was beautiful, goofy as hell, full of work ethic and values, he never put people down even when he was joking, he never made you feel insecure about yourself – he knew how to be hilarious in such a positive way his and it just made him so much more likeable.”
Wactor also appeared in shows such as ‘Westworld’, ‘NCIS’ and ‘Criminal Minds’.
Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD Central Station at 213-486-6606. Those who wish to remain anonymous
can call LA Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or visit lacrimestoppers.org.
