General Hospital Star Johnny Wactor’s Brave Final Act Revealed: Actor, 37, Shielded Female Co-Worker from Armed Car Thieves When Fatally Shot

Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal actor John­ny Wac­tor, 37, was killed in a trag­ic act of hero­ism over the week­end. Wac­tor was walk­ing a female co-work­er to her car ear­ly Sat­ur­day morn­ing when they encoun­tered a group of armed car thieves.

Rather than flee to safe­ty, Wac­tor posi­tioned him­self between the thieves and his co-work­er, shield­ing her from the gun­fire. Sad­ly, Wac­tor was fatal­ly shot in the chest dur­ing the encounter.

Wac­tor’s younger broth­er Grant con­firmed the trag­ic details to DailyMail.com, stat­ing that the actor was raised to be a “South­ern gen­tle­man” who would nev­er let a woman walk alone.

“He came across them and he thought his truck was being towed. So he said some­thing to the guys, like, ‘Hey, are you tow­ing?’ And then once he turned around, he saw what was hap­pen­ing and he put his cowork­er behind him. And that’s when they shot him.”

Police say the three masked sus­pects were in the process of steal­ing Wac­tor’s cat­alyt­ic con­vert­er when the actor inter­vened. The thieves then fled the scene in anoth­er vehi­cle, leav­ing Wac­tor mor­tal­ly wound­ed. He was rushed to a near­by hos­pi­tal but pro­nounced dead short­ly after.

Wac­tor’s grand­moth­er Bar­bara and broth­er Grant expressed dev­as­ta­tion over the sense­less tragedy. “We’re com­plete­ly dev­as­tat­ed,” his grand­moth­er said. “He was just walk­ing to his car. It’s senseless.”

The 37-year-old actor was best known for his role as Bran­do Corbin on the long-run­ning soap opera Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal from 2020 to 2022. 

His co-stars have tak­en to social media to mourn the loss of the tal­ent­ed and kind­heart­ed per­former. “John­ny Wac­tor was a beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful soul,” wrote co-star Per­ry Shen. “So talented…Funny as all heck. Fit as all hell but also loved ice cream and ate all the junk I did as well.”