Jonathan Joss, RIP. Photo credit: Somerset High School, via Wikipedia Commons
Jonathan Joss, known for voicing John Redcorn on “King of the Hill,” was fatally shot, yesterday on his property in San Antonio. His husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, released a statement on Joss’s Facebook page, alleging that the shooting was a hate crime and that a neighbor with whom Joss had a long-standing dispute was responsible.
Gonzales recounted that on Sunday night, he and Joss were at the site of their recently burned home to retrieve mail, including a check related to the fire. Neighbors had previously reported that Joss’s home burned down after he used a BBQ pit for heating, following a power cutoff by the city due to the home being deemed unsafe.
However, Gonzales suggested the fire was suspicious, stating, “That home was burned down after two years of threats from people in the area who repeatedly told us they would set it on fire. We reported these threats to law enforcement multiple times and nothing was done.”
Gonzales further claimed that he and Joss were subjected to “openly homophobic” harassment. He detailed that while at their property on Sunday, they discovered the remains of one of their dogs that died in the fire, prompting them to express their grief. At that point, a man appeared, “yelling violent homophobic slurs at us,” and then “raised a gun from his lap and fired.”
According to Gonzales, neither he nor Joss was armed. He stated that Joss pushed him out of the line of fire, sacrificing his own life to save Gonzales’s. “He was murdered by someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other,” Gonzales wrote, adding that he was with Joss when he died. Gonzales also revealed they were newlyweds, having married on Valentine’s Day, and were planning their future.
Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja has been arrested and charged with murder, held on a $200,000 bond.
