“General Hospital” actor Johnny Wactor was shot to death Saturday morning when he encountered three men trying to steal the catalytic converter from his car, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of the case.
The incident occurred around 3:25 a.m. when a vehicle owner encountered three people near Pico Boulevard and Hope Street trying to steal the car part, said Officer Jader Chaves, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. The man was shot by one of the robbers before the three fled in another vehicle, Chaves said. The officer did not identify the shooting victim but said she was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
A source confirmed Sunday to The Times that the victim was Wactor, who played Brando Corbin on “General Hospital” from 2020 to 2022. He also had roles on other shows, including “Westworld,” “Criminal Minds” and “Station 19.” . “
The source said Wactor discovered the men, masked, outside his car and confronted them. That’s when he was shot.
Wactor, 37, left “General Hospital” in 2022 when his popular character was written out of the show. At the time, he told Soap Opera Digest he took advantage the show’s large and loyal fan base.
“It was all new to me and it was a blessing,” he said. “It was fun going to work and being excited to see people react to the stories you were in. The fact that they actually cared was really cool.”
The catalytic converter, an exhaust emissions control device typically found in a vehicle’s chassis, contains precious metals including rhodium, palladium and platinum. Thieves can make hundreds of dollars by selling them to auto parts suppliers or scrapyards, where they can be melted down and the valuable metals extracted.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
