“General Hospital” actor Johnny Wactor was shot and killed early Saturday 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 the owner of a vehicle encountered three people near Pico Boulevard and Hope Street who were trying to steal the car part, said Officer Jader Chaves, 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 he was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
A source confirmed to The Times on Sunday 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, who were masked, outside his car and confronted them. That's when they shot him.
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 that he enjoyed the show's large and loyal fan base.
“Everything was new to me and it was a blessing,” he said. “It was fun to go to work and then get excited to see people react to the stories you were in. That they actually cared was really cool.”
The catalytic converter, an exhaust emissions control device typically found on a vehicle's undercarriage, contains precious metals such as rhodium, palladium and platinum. Thieves can make hundreds of dollars by selling them to auto parts suppliers or scrap yards, where they can melt them down and extract the valuable metals.
