Jonathan Joss, the San Antonio–born performer whose voice gave life to John Redcorn on Fox’s long-running “King of the Hill” and who later portrayed tribal leader Ken Hotate on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” was shot and killed outside his former South Side home just after 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 1, police said. He was 59. Officers arrived on Dorsey Drive to find him lying near the roadway with multiple gunshot wounds; paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene minutes later.
Investigators identified the alleged shooter as Joss’s neighbor, Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja, also 59, who was detained a block away after fleeing in a vehicle and has since been booked on a murder charge with bond set at $200,000. Detectives have not disclosed a motive, but court filings describe an argument that escalated into gunfire.
Joss’s three-decade career stretched from early television bit parts to feature films such as “True Grit” and “The Magnificent Seven,” yet he remained most closely associated with John Redcorn, a role he assumed in 1997 following the death of original actor Victor Aaron and sustained through the show’s 2009 finale. He was due to reprise the character in Hulu’s revival of the animated series, a return teased at Austin’s ATX TV Festival only days before his death.
Tributes flooded social media within hours: fans extolled his advocacy for Native representation and colleagues recalled his easygoing presence on set; Mike Judge, the series’ co-creator, wrote that Joss “brought heart and dignity to every line.” Community support was familiar to the actor: in January he lost his childhood home and three dogs in a fire, prompting a local fundraiser he called “humbling proof that kindness survives hard times.”
Police continue to process ballistic evidence and canvass the neighborhood, while an autopsy scheduled this week is expected to confirm the preliminary finding of multiple gunshot wounds as the cause of death. Court records indicate a pre-trial hearing for Ceja is set for June 24 in Bexar County District Court.
