King of the Hill


voice actor Jonathan Joss was shot and killed in what his husband alleges to have been a homophobic hate crime. On Monday, authorities confirmed that Joss, 59, had died after a Sunday night altercation with a former neighbor.

Afterwards, Joss’ husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales,

shared his account of the incident

in a social media statement where he claimed the couple was regularly the target of homophobic harassment and threats while living in the San Antonio, Texas, neighborhood.

Gonzales and Joss had moved out of the area after their

home burned down in January

but returned to the site to retrieve pieces of mail. Upon encountering the skull of a dog they lost in the fire, Gonzales said both men “began yelling and crying in response to the pain of what we saw.”

It was at that point, they were approached by a man “yelling violent homophobic slurs” who “then raised a gun from his lap and fired,” Gonzales claimed.


“Jonathan and I had no weapons. We were not threatening anyone,” he wrote. “We were grieving. We were standing side by side. When the man fired Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life.”

“He was murdered by someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other,” Gonzales said in his statement, which went on to thank Joss’ friends and fans.

“Jonathan saved my life. I will carry that forward,” the statement concluded. “I will protect what he built.”


San Antonio police initially told People magazine

they discovered Joss with several gunshot wounds after they were dispatched to a shooting in progress around 7 p.m. on Sunday night.

Though they attempted life-saving measures while waiting for medics to arrive, he was later pronounced dead on the scene.

The suspected shooter, neighbor Sigfredo Alvarez Cejam, fled, but was detained by officers a block away from the crime scene. Cejam has been booked on murder charges, and an investigation is still ongoing.


Sources who spoke to TMZ

told the outlet that Joss and Cejam had a history of getting into “verbal and physical” altercations with one another.


Joss was the voice of the stoic but sensitive

King of the Hill

regular John Redcorn from Season 2 through Season 13 of the animated classic, which aired its series finale in 2009.

He had reportedly already recorded lines for the show’s highly-anticipated revival and appeared alongside castmates at Austin’s ATX TV Festival last week to promote the reboot.


Joss’ other credits include a recurring role as Chief Ken Hotate on

Parks and Recreation

, as well as appearances in

Tulsa King

,

Ray Donovan

,

True Grit

and

The Magnificent Seven.


During his lifetime, the Comanche and White Mountain Apache actor had pushed for the industry to stop using dated stereotypes while depicting Native Americans.

At Indigenous

Comic Con

2017,

he told aspiring actors

that while Hollywood seemed scared to write Native American characters “in a modern day scenarios,” it’s still worth it to take “a stance.”
This article has been updated to reflect new information.This article originally appeared on

HuffPost

.