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NEED TO KNOW
- The husband of actor Jonathan Joss opens up to PEOPLE about the final words he told the Parks and Recreation actor after he was fatally shot on Sunday, June 1
- Tristan Kern de Gonzales says that as Joss lay dying, “I held my husband’s face together as best I could”
- Kern de Gonzales claims the alleged gunman “mocked” him and was “laughing” at him as he said his final goodbye to Joss
Jonathan Joss’ husband is sharing heart-wrenching details about the King of the Hill actor’s final moments.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Tristan Kern de Gonzales fights back tears as he recalls the final words he told Joss just before he died at the age of 59.
“Everything happened very quickly,” Kern de Gonzales, 32, says of the fatal shooting at their San Antonio, Texas, home on Sunday, June 1, that allegedly resulted from a dispute with one of their neighbors.
“Everything was very close range and due to the severity and the trauma of the various head wounds, I knew that there was no hope of saving Jonathan’s physical form, and he was struggling so hard, trying to stay alive,” he notes.
Tristan Kern de Gonzales/Facebook
“It was just really, really close range,” Kern de Gonzales remembers. “I held my husband’s face together as best I could, and I told him how much I loved him, and that none of this was his fault. I told him he needed to cross over easy. He didn’t need to keep fighting.”
Kern de Gonzales continues, “I told him that no matter what, and in some way, shape, or form, we’ll always be together, and he’ll always be my husband.”
He claims that while his husband lay dying, “the [alleged] gunman was still in [his] car” and “still had the gun pointed over me.”
“He was laughing,” Kern de Gonzales alleges. “He mocked me for telling my husband that I loved him and used the same homophobic slurs” that the gunman allegedly used before shooting Joss.
NBC
“I was just really looking down at my husband, focused on him, making sure that he had completely crossed over,” Kern de Gonzales says.
San Antonio Police arrested one of Joss’ neighbors, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez, shortly after the actor was fatally shot and charged him with first-degree murder. Police have said Alvarez, 56, admitted to shooting and killing the Parks and Recreation actor. He was released on Monday, June 2, on a $200,000 bond.
The shooting has left Kern de Gonzales in a state of “shock.”
“The flashbacks are very, very intense, and they affect my whole body,” he tells PEOPLE.
Kern de Gonzales, who previously wrote on Facebook that Joss pushed him out of the way and saved his life, says his late husband’s final act of self-sacrifice has given him strength as he grieves.
Tristan Kern de Gonzales/Facebook
“I know that I have to keep going and not let go of this because he saved my life, and I can’t just let that go,” he explains. “I have to use the gift that he gave me wisely.”
Kern de Gonzales adds of Joss, who he met in 2023 and married on Valentine’s Day 2025: “He will always be my husband and the love of my life. He really gave me a lifetime’s worth of love in the short time that we got together.”
Kern de Gonzales has maintained that Joss was the victim of a hate crime and that they suffered repeated harassment and homophobic abuse from their neighbors prior to his husband’s murder.
“It does hurt whenever people try to say that it wasn’t a hate crime,” he says.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
The day after Joss died, the San Antonio Police Department said their investigation had “found no evidence to indicate that Mr. Joss’s murder was related to his sexual orientation.”
However, at a Thursday press conference, SAPD police chief William McManus walked back that statement.
“That was way, way, way, premature,” McManus said. “We shouldn’t have done it. It was way too soon before we had any real information. And I will own that.”
He added, “I want to apologize to the LGBTQ+ community for the tragic loss of Mr. Joss, which has been heavily felt.”
McManus continued, “Our homicide detectives are continuing to pursue every lead in this case to ensure that we understand the full picture of what led up to the senseless murder of Mr. Joss.”
