General Hospital’s Johnny Wactor killed in downtown Los Angeles catalytic converter heist, police say

“General Hospital” actor Johnny Wactor was fatally shot 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 matter.

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’s part, said Officer Jader Chaves, door -spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department. The man was shot by one of the robbers before all three fled in another vehicle, Chaves said. The officer did not identify the victim, but said he was taken to the 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 series, including “Westworld,” “Criminal Minds” and ” Station 19″. “

The source said Wactor discovered the masked men outside his car and confronted them. That’s when he was shot.

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The actor’s mother, Scarlett Wactor, told ABC7 that before her son encountered the thieves, he was leaving a downtown rooftop bar where he worked and was walking with a co-worker. She said he saw people near his car and approached to see if it was towed before he was shot.

Wactor, 37, left “General Hospital” in 2022 when his popular character was removed from the series. At the time, he told Soap Opera Digest that he appreciated the show’s large and loyal fan base.

“It was all new to me and it was a blessing,” he said. “It was fun to go to work and then be excited to see people react to the storylines 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 undercarriage, 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 melt them down and extract the precious metals.

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This story was originally published in the Los Angeles Times.