Latest news with #Ceja
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
San Antonio police backpedal on initial claim that Jonathan Joss' murder was not an anti-LGBT hate crime
Less than a week after the San Antonio Police Department insisted there was 'no evidence whatsoever' of homophobia in the June 1 shooting death of former King of the Hill actor Jonathan Joss, the city's top cop walked back that claim as 'way, way, way premature.' 'We shouldn't have done it,' SAPD Chief William McManus said at a Thursday press conference. 'It was way too soon, before we had any real information, and I will own that.' 'We understand that many in the LGBTQ+ community are feeling anxious and concerned,' McManus added. 'A lot of it has to do with that premature statement that we released, and again, I own that shouldn't have done it. The loss of Jonathan Joss was tragic and most, most heavily felt by the LGBTQ+ community.' Last Sunday, as Joss, 59, and husband Tristan Kern de Gonzales drove to San Antonio from Austin, where they had recently been living, to check the mail at what remains of their home, which burned down in January. (Kern de Gonzalez said he is certain the blaze was arson. Authorities, on the other hand, have said the cause remains undetermined.) When they got there, the pair was shocked to find the charred skull of one of their three dogs, which had perished in the blaze, placed on the ground 'in clear view,' according to Kern de Gonzales. The two began crying and screaming, leading to the deadly confrontation with neighbor Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez, he said. In announcing Joss' death on social media, Kern de Gonzales, 23, said there was no doubt the deadly attack was a hate crime. The 59-year-old Ceja, Kern de Gonzales wrote in a Facebook post, 'was someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other.' Still, the SAPD issued a statement a day later saying investigators had found nothing 'to indicate that Mr. Joss' murder was related to his sexual orientation.' 'We take such allegations very seriously and have thoroughly reviewed all available information,' the statement said. 'Should any new evidence come to light, we will charge the suspect accordingly.' However, Kern de Gonzales subsequently told The Independent that Ceja laughed and spewed homophobic slurs as Joss lay dying. 'Everything was really close range. It was in the head,' Kern de Gonzales said. 'I held his face together while I told him how much I loved him. He could still hear me, he looked up at me and he wasn't able to talk because of the extent [of his injuries], but I could tell he was trying to say, 'I love you.'' This, according to Kern de Gonzales, prompted Ceja to unleash a vile anti-LGBT tirade. 'While I'm holding him, he has the gun pointed over me, and he's laughing, saying, 'Oh, you love him? Joto,'' said Kern de Gonzales, who grew up in South Carolina. ''Joto' is Spanish for f****t. I never knew the word until I came to Texas, and then I heard it a lot.' Joss was pronounced dead at the scene. Ceja, according to an incident report obtained from the SAPD, quickly confessed, telling police, 'I shot him.' Some 48 hours following the shooting, Ceja, who now faces a first-degree murder charge, was released from jail on $200,000 bond. He will remain under house arrest, two doors down from where Joss was gunned down, pending trial. In a follow-up interview with The Independent after Ceja bailed out, Kern de Gonzales said he was not surprised by the turn of events and railed against the SAPD for not having better protected Joss. He said the couple, who married this past Valentine's Day, had lodged dozens of complaints about alleged harassment and threats from Ceja and other nearby residents, to little effect. Joss had also been the subject of complaints to police by neighbors, who called the cops on the actor more than 50 times in the past year, according to SAPD incident logs. However, while Joss may have at times annoyed people by 'ranting and raving' in public, Kern de Gonzales said he suffered at times from mental illness but insisted he was never a danger to himself or anyone else. 'I've been in mental health crisis and acted just as Jonathan did, even worse,' he said. 'The difference was, I was given medical attention and was treated as someone who needed help instead of being seen as a violent threat. Jonathan was never violent, he never went after anybody or threatened anybody's person.' Joss, who was of Comanche and White Mountain Apache descent, was best known for voicing the part of John Redcorn in the animated series King of the Hill. He also appeared in a recurring role as Chief Ken Hotate on the NBC series Parks and Recreation. Ceja 'thought he would silence [Joss] and get rid of him, but all he did was make him more powerful,' Kern de Gonzales said. Now, he continued, Joss will instead 'be remembered as a martyr and a legend' among many in the LGBT and Native American communities. Ceja is due back in court on August 19. His court-appointed lawyer, Alfonso Otero, did not respond to a request for comment.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
A memorial grows for Jonathon Joss, and quiet descends on a complicated street
A family who moved to a south-side San Antonio neighborhood roughly six years ago said that they were warned right away about an eccentric man who lived across the street. They were told, they said, that Jonathan Joss would play drums on his roof at all hours of the night and would yell obscenities and racial slurs at people outside. They said that, when confronted, Joss would often say that he was rehearsing for a role. He really was an actor, though. He played the role of John Redcorn in the animated show 'King of the Hill' for more than a dozen seasons, including in the show's upcoming revival. Another neighbor, Daniela Ruano, 19, said she lived next door to Joss her entire life. He would yell racist slurs at her family, she said, honk his horn in the middle of the night and threaten to hurt them. The behavior, she said, had accelerated. 'I'd say like the last two years have been the worst with him. He started breaking down my fence from the back,' she said. 'We would call the police on him a lot.' Two years ago, she said, Joss threatened another neighbor's brother with a crossbow. Police reports confirm that officers responded to the incident, but did not find a crossbow on Joss when they arrived at the scene. Earlier this year, Joss' family home was destroyed in a fire. But he still came by, neighbors said. In a video Ruano took of the actor on June 1, he is seen walking around the neighborhood and yelling; he is carrying a makeshift pitchfork. At one point, he said he is 'rehearsing a scene.' That day she took the video, Joss, his husband Tristan Kern de Gonzales and another friend were there to pick up mail. The group had just returned from Austin, de Gonzales said, where Joss had participated in a fan meet-and-greet event. Joss, 59, arrived in the usual manner that his neighbors said that they had grown unhappily accustomed to, makeshift pitchfork included. Then, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez – the neighbor whose brother said he had been threatened by Joss with the crossbow two years ago – drove up behind Joss who was parked in his driveway. He got out, the two exchanged words, witnesses said, and seconds later, Joss was dead. 'I shot him,' Ceja told police, according to an incident report. Ceja, 56, was arrested and charged with murder. His bond was set at $200,000, which he posted on Monday. He was released from jail with GPS monitoring on Wednesday afternoon and is due to appear in court on August 19, according to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office public information officer. When most people think of an actor's life, they tend to imagine gleaming houses high in the Hollywood Hills. For years, Joss lived in the modest house his father built in the 1950s. This week, a makeshift memorial for Joss began growing at the property's fence. A man pulled up in a truck with a royal blue memorial cross adorned with ribbons and flowers. He tied the cross to the fence above the growing memorial. The man, Adrian Reyes, told CNN he had known Joss since high school; they were both in the class of 1984 at Dillard McCollum High School, which recently held its 40th year reunion. 'We're very, very close with him in that class. We track him everywhere,' said Reyes. 'We helped him financially. We helped him get to his events when he didn't have transportation.' 'It's a shame that people are learning about him now that he's gone rather than when he was alive and how talented he was and what a talent we lost,' Reyes said. 'He was a different kind of guy, but he was the life of the party.' Neighbors said there were years, maybe even decades, of disputes, particularly between Joss and Ceja. San Antonio Police logs show numerous calls to both addresses over the past year. 'Me and Jonathan had all these fun little side projects where we were coming up with these little scripts, most of them just for fun to make ourselves laugh. And we would be acting them out in the yard and I guess to the outside world maybe it looked a little crazy,' de Gonzales told viewers on Instagram Live. He did say that although they would sometimes walk around the neighborhood with things like a stick or pitchfork, they never 'threatened' or 'pointed any weapons at anybody.' Police were called to Joss' residence nearly 50 times since January 2024. In some instances, officers were dispatched multiple times in a single day. Neighbors said Joss' behavior turned more erratic and harassing as the years went on. Some said they saw him throw trash and wine bottles onto a nearby property under construction and damage that neighbor's mailbox. 'He went over there and yanked the mailbox off the top, and it was in a brick casing. So he yanked off the door and beat it up where our neighbor had to go replace it,' said one neighbor, who spoke to CNN but asked that their name not be used due to the attention the killing was bringing to their street. 'Jonathan and I had no weapons. We were not threatening anyone. We were grieving. We were standing side by side. When the man fired, Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life,' de Gonzales said after the shooting, about their trip back to the burned-down home site. De Gonzalez said that the person who killed Joss yelled 'violent homophobic slurs' before opening fire. 'He was murdered by someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other,' de Gonzales said. (CNN has attempted multiple times to contact Ceja and also reached out to his lawyer.) The San Antonio Police Department issued a statement on Monday rebutting this. 'Despite online claims of this being a hate crime, currently the investigation has found no evidence to indicate that Mr. Joss's murder was related to his sexual orientation,' the department posted online. But, on Wednesday, as the police department was sharing a Pride Month community forum event, they also released a new statement saying they were continuing the investigation. 'Although we arrested a suspect, our homicide detectives continue to follow every lead to fully understand what led to this senseless act.' On Thursday, San Antonio police expressed more regret. 'We issued a statement the day after Jonathan Joss's murder that was way, way, way premature,' SAPD Chief William McManus told CNN affiliate KENS on Thursday. 'We shouldn't have done it. It was way too soon before we had any real information and I will own that.' He echoed similar sentiments at a forum hosted by San Antonio Pride and the SAPD on Thursday evening, explaining that a judge can attach a hate crime to charges later on. He said they will gather all of the facts leading up to Jonathan Joss' death and will present the case to the District Attorney's office to make that call. He added that police are also investigating the January fire at Joss' home. Joss had told everyone that he was going through a lot. Online, he said he was fighting an uphill battle with financial difficulties. In November, Joss spoke about the difficult living conditions he and his then-fiancé were facing. He said that their home lacked basic utilities such as gas and electricity and described using a fire pit to heat coffee. Despite the challenges, he expressed hope about 'getting through some rough times.' There was one bright spot: his marriage to de Gonzales. Still, Joss also talked about using a stove to heat up water for a hot shower. On Instagram, he showed the poor condition of his house, revealing several holes in the walls and ceiling. In January, Joss experienced two house fires. The second destroyed the house and his car and killed his three dogs, according to social media posts from Joss and his partner. 'Everything I owned… gone. My memories, my keepsakes, my family, my comfort in this world lost in the flames,' he wrote on Facebook. In the months that followed, Joss frequently took to social media to ask fans for financial support. He regularly shared a GoFundMe link started by a fan, which has now raised over $20,000. He sold autographed photos, personalized video messages, t-shirts and '$1 wisdom sayings.' He also posted about marrying his partner on Valentine's Day. In one post with de Gonzales, Joss wrote: 'We shall endeavor to persevere together.' He frequently tried to secure transportation and financial support on Facebook to be able to make celebrity appearances at conventions. Just two days before he was killed, Joss showed up at a 'King of the Hill' Revival Sneak Peek event at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas – although he had already written on Facebook that he was not invited to attend. Attendee Brandon Robinson said Joss walked up to the Q&A mic and started 'ranting.' Robinson originally thought Joss' speech was planned but said he soon realized it wasn't. After making some references to his character in 'King of the Hill,' Joss said: 'My house burned down three months ago because I'm gay.' The panelists then announced Joss as the voice of the show's character John Redcorn, prompting applause from the audience. Joss spoke about feeling ignored at the event in one of his final interviews, which took place on 'Bwaaa! A King of the Hill podcast.' But he also said he'd loved his life as an actor. 'I've just been really lucky to have really decent parts. I mean, I never had a – I've never done a bad thing when it comes to acting,' Joss said. Another family showed up this week to remember Joss at the site of the shooting. Paul Gonzalez and Tiffany Zurita said that they lived nearby, but never knew Joss lived in the area. 'We grew up watching the cartoon, you know, me and my wife when we were kids – so just shocked by it,' Gonzalez said of the killing. They brought a pinwheel to place at the memorial, explaining that it helped their own family when experiencing loss. It was something 'to kind of bring that little life back in,' Zurita said. 'You know, the wind's blowing, you see it blowing in the wind, and it just, you know, kind of reminds you that that person's still here,' she said. 'It's a symbol of peace and serene surroundings.' They both said prayers for everyone involved in the tragic incident – and for the neighbors as well. 'I hope they all find peace in time,' said Gonzalez. CNN's Lisa Respers France, Dianne Gallagher, Devon Sayers, Andy Buck, Jeremy Grisham, and Leah Thomeer contributed to this report.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘King of the Hill' actor Jonathan Joss' alleged killer set free after posting $200,000 bail
The suspect accused of fatally gunning down Jonathan Joss, an actor best known for TV roles on King of the Hill and Parks and Recreation, is out of jail after posting $200,000 bond and will await trial at home – less than 75 yards from the scene of the crime. Police arrested Ceja, 56, on first-degree murder charges shortly after Joss was shot dead Sunday evening in front of his San Antonio home. He made bail on Monday, and was released Tuesday afternoon, court records show. He is now under full house arrest, with a slew of conditions that include GPS monitoring, random drug and alcohol testing, and a ban on firearms possession. Attorney Alfonso Otero, Ceja's court-appointed lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment. Although police say they have 'no evidence' the killing was a hate crime, Joss' husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, said that Ceja, who lives two doors down from the couple, directed homophobic slurs at the two as the 59-year-old Joss lay dying. 'Everything was really close range. It was in the head,' Kern de Gonzales told The Independent. 'I held his face together while I told him how much I loved him. He could still hear me, he looked up at me and he wasn't able to talk because of the extent [of his injuries], but I could tell he was trying to say, 'I love you.'' At the same time, Ceja, who had reportedly been engaged in a long-running feud with Joss, laughed coldly and sneered, 'Oh, you love him? Joto,'' according to Kern de Gonzales, a South Carolina native. ' 'Joto' is Spanish for f****t,' he said. 'I never knew the word until I came to Texas, and then I heard it a lot. The deadly clash occurred after Joss and Kern de Gonzales showed up at their home, which burned down in January, to collect their mail. The two had been living in Austin, about 90 miles away, following the blaze, according to Kern de Gonzalez, who said he is certain the blaze was arson. Authorities, on the other hand, have said the cause remains undetermined. Joss clashed frequently with others on the block, who Kern de Gonzales claimed had subjected the pair to ongoing anti-LGBT+ harassment over the past two years. One neighbor shared a video with local CBS affiliate KENS, purportedly showing Joss walking back and forth with a pitchfork, screaming. However, while Joss may have at times annoyed his neighbors by ' ranting and raving ' in public, Kern de Gonzales said his spouse battled mental illness and insisted he was never violent. 'I don't care if me and my husband were walking around with one pitchfork in our hand and another pitchfork up our a**, we didn't point any weapons at anybody,' Kern de Gonzales told The Independent. 'When the man rolled up with the gun, we were checking the mail.' A police log shared with The Independent by the San Antonio PD lists more than 50 calls between January 26, 2024 and February 9, 2025 to the house Joss and Kern de Gonzales shared. Officers showed up at the address in response to disturbance reports, to conduct mental health and welfare checks, complaints of theft and criminal mischief, and one incident last year allegedly involving a knife. (Further details were not immediately available on the episode, or exactly who was involved.) The final entry is for a shooting in progress at 7:02 p.m. on Sunday, June 1, the incident that ended Joss' life. Kern de Gonzalez said finds it 'really sad how people treat other people when they're having a mental health crisis or going through trauma,' and that no one wants to consider what led to that point. 'It's OK to be a little sad, but if you're in a state where you're yelling or whatever, that doesn't get the same grace,' Kern de Gonzales said. Ceja is due back in court on August 19.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Slurs, 911 calls and a crossbow: Records detail neighborhood disputes before Jonathan Joss' killing
Newlyweds Jonathan Joss and Tristan Kern de Gonzales held each other in their final moment together on Sunday. Joss, the 59-year-old voice actor best known as John Redcorn from 'King of the Hill,' had just been shot in the head in front of their San Antonio, Texas home. "I didn't want him to struggle and everything so I decided to tell him I loved him. And despite the severity of everything he was able to look up at me and acknowledge what I was saying so I know he heard me," Kern de Gonzales, 32, said. "I just kept telling him 'it's okay. You need to cross over. You don't need to keep struggling. You need to go ahead and cross over easy.'" Kern de Gonzales said Joss' alleged killer also had final words for the actor. He called him and his husband "jotos," a Spanish slur for gay people. "I've been called that word while I was sitting on a bench with Jonathan, eating lunch," Kern de Gonzales said. "And I got called that holding Jonathan while he died." Shortly after, police arrested one of the pair's neighbors, Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja, for Joss' killing. Kern de Gonzales says he believes Ceja, 56, killed his husband because of his sexual orientation. But the San Antonio Police Department says there's "no evidence" to indicate that Joss' killing was motivated by hate. Authorities have not yet revealed a motive or additional details of their investigation into the shooting. Police records obtained by NBC News and interviews with Kern de Gonzales and the pair's neighbors paint a complicated picture of what led up to the voice actor's tragic killing. Ceja could not be reached for comment. He has not yet acquired an attorney, according to the Bexar County District Clerk's Office. Kern de Gonzalez, who lived in his husband's childhood home since March 2024, said that he and Joss were regularly at odds with their neighbors, including Ceja, in recent years. He claims that many neighbors would hurl anti-gay slurs at them and complain about them being "loud," making them feel unwanted in the neighborhood. Police were called to respond to incidents at their home more than four dozen times, according to call logs obtained by NBC News, with most of the calls labeled as "disturbances." One of the pair's neighbors, who asked that their name not be shared due to fear of retaliation, said Joss was difficult to live by. "He's been a nightmare," the neighbor said. Kern de Gonzales acknowledged that his husband had a tendency to be "loud." "Me and Jonathan would be out there late at night playing the drums, singing, being a nuisance," Kern de Gonzales said. "If you're going to make it hard for us to live here, you ain't going to get no sleep." The couple's relationship with Ceja was particularly contentious. A spokesperson for SAPD confirmed with NBC News that the police department's "SAFFE" unit, which works to prevent crimes, had been mediating a dispute between Ceja and Joss for over a year. In June 2024, Ceja told police that Joss approached his house with a crossbow and hurled racial slurs at him, according to a separate police report. Joss confirmed to police that he walked over to Ceja's house to "talk about their dogs fighting with each other," according to the report. The report adds that Joss "got very defensive and stated that he does not bother" Ceja "at all." Authorities later searched Joss' home and retrieved a crossbow from his living room, police records say. And in January, Joss accused Ceja of burning their house down, according to police records. Joss told police that on the morning of the fire, he was using a barbecue in his living room because he did not have heat or electricity, according to the report. However, he said he turned the barbecue off before leaving the house to get lunch. He told police that an unnamed individual saw Ceja on his property the day before and suggested Ceja was responsible, according to the report. "I have classified this fire to be undetermined in nature at this time but cannot rule out human involvement intentional or unintentional," the officer filling out the report wrote. The fire caused the pair to be homeless, Kern de Gonzales said. But that did not stop them from getting married. They wed on Valentine's Day in Houston. "It was a very nice, simple ceremony, you know, just me and him and it, it really suited us," he said. "We were really and really proud to be married.' Kern de Gonzales said that he and his husband returned to their property on Sunday to retrieve mail. When they arrived, he said they found the skull of a dog on their property. The pair thought the skull belonged to their dog that perished in a fire and was placed there by a neighbor as a way to taunt them. The incident prompted Joss to march up and down their street with a pitchfork and begin yelling, Kern de Gonzales said. Several minutes later, he said, Ceja allegedly pulled up to their property and shot Joss. According to a police report from the Sunday shooting, Ceja told officers, "I shot him" upon his arrest on Sunday. 'I could give two f----s less if me or my husband had 50 pitchforks in every orifice of our body rolling up and down that street like tumbleweed," he said. "It don't matter." This article was originally published on
NBC News
4 days ago
- General
- NBC News
Slurs, 911 calls and a crossbow: Records detail neighborhood disputes before Jonathan Joss' killing
Newlyweds Jonathan Joss and Tristan Kern de Gonzales held each other in their final moment together on Sunday. Joss, the 59-year-old voice actor best known as John Redcorn from 'King of the Hill,' had just been shot in the head in front of their San Antonio, Texas home. "I didn't want him to struggle and everything so I decided to tell him I loved him. And despite the severity of everything he was able to look up at me and acknowledge what I was saying so I know he heard me," Kern de Gonzales, 32, said. "I just kept telling him 'it's okay. You need to cross over. You don't need to keep struggling. You need to go ahead and cross over easy.'" Kern de Gonzales said Joss' alleged killer also had final words for the actor. He called him and his husband "jotos," a Spanish slur for gay people. "I've been called that word while I was sitting on a bench with Jonathan, eating lunch," Kern de Gonzales said. "And I got called that holding Jonathan while he died." Shortly after, police arrested one of the pair's neighbors, Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja, for Joss' killing. Kern de Gonzales says he believes Ceja, 56, killed his husband because of his sexual orientation. But the San Antonio Police Department says there's "no evidence" to indicate that Joss' killing was motivated by hate. Authorities have not yet revealed a motive or additional details of their investigation into the shooting. Police records obtained by NBC News and interviews with Kern de Gonzales and the pair's neighbors paint a complicated picture of what led up to the voice actor's tragic killing. Ceja could not be reached for comment. He has not yet acquired an attorney, according to the Bexar County District Clerk's Office. Kern de Gonzalez, who lived in his husband's childhood home since March 2024, said that he and Joss were regularly at odds with their neighbors, including Ceja, in recent years. He claims that many neighbors would hurl anti-gay slurs at them and complain about them being "loud," making them feel unwanted in the neighborhood. Police were called to respond to incidents at their home more than four dozen times, according to call logs obtained by NBC News, with most of the calls labeled as "disturbances." One of the pair's neighbors, who asked that their name not be shared due to fear of retaliation, said Joss was difficult to live by. "He's been a nightmare," the neighbor said. Kern de Gonzales acknowledged that his husband had a tendency to be "loud." "Me and Jonathan would be out there late at night playing the drums, singing, being a nuisance," Kern de Gonzales said. "If you're going to make it hard for us to live here, you ain't going to get no sleep." The couple's relationship with Ceja was particularly contentious. A spokesperson for SAPD confirmed with NBC News that the police department's "SAFFE" unit, which works to prevent crimes, had been mediating a dispute between Ceja and Joss for over a year. In June 2024, Ceja told police that Joss approached his house with a crossbow and hurled racial slurs at him, according to a separate police report. Joss confirmed to police that he walked over to Ceja's house to "talk about their dogs fighting with each other," according to the report. The report adds that Joss "got very defensive and stated that he does not bother" Ceja "at all." Authorities later searched Joss' home and retrieved a crossbow from his living room, police records say. And in January, Joss accused Ceja of burning their house down, according to police records. Joss told police that on the morning of the fire, he was using a barbecue in his living room because he did not have heat or electricity, according to the report. However, he said he turned the barbecue off before leaving the house to get lunch. He told police that an unnamed individual saw Ceja on his property the day before and suggested Ceja was responsible, according to the report. "I have classified this fire to be undetermined in nature at this time but cannot rule out human involvement intentional or unintentional," the officer filling out the report wrote. The fire caused the pair to be homeless, Kern de Gonzales said. But that did not stop them from getting married. They wed on Valentine's Day in Houston. "It was a very nice, simple ceremony, you know, just me and him and it, it really suited us," he said. "We were really and really proud to be married.' Kern de Gonzales said that he and his husband returned to their property on Sunday to retrieve mail. When they arrived, he said they found the skull of a dog on their property. The pair thought the skull belonged to their dog that perished in a fire and was placed there by a neighbor as a way to taunt them. The incident prompted Joss to march up and down their street with a pitchfork and begin yelling, Kern de Gonzales said. Several minutes later, he said, is when Ceja allegedly pulled up to their property and shot Joss. 'I could give two f----s less if me or my husband had 50 pitchforks in every orifice of our body rolling up and down that street like tumbleweed," he said. "It don't matter."
