Jonathan Joss Joked That ‘My Neighbors Now Are Really Scared’ in Final Public Appearance
Just one day before he would die from multiple gun-shot wounds following a tense confrontation with his neighbor at his home in San Antonio, King of the Hill actor Jonathan Joss made some gallows-humor jokes about his relationship with people on his block that play especially dark today.
This morning, the San Antonio Police Department announced that Joss had died after suffering multiple gunshot wounds at his home on the city’s south side yesterday evening. According to the police, Joss’ neighbor, Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja, drew a firearm and killed Joss following a tense confrontation on the latter’s property before fleeing the scene in a vehicle. Ceja is now in custody.
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On Saturday, Joss made what would be his final public appearance during a live show for Bwaaa! A King of The Hill Podcast in Austin, Texas, during which he made numerous dark jokes about the hardships he had faced in the last several months, along with making some serious claims about the circumstances surrounding the tragic house fire that he suffered earlier this year, which took the life of his three dogs.
Back in January, Joss’ family home in San Antonio, which his parents built in 1957, burnt down with his three dogs trapped inside. At the time, Joss blamed a gas-powered heater he had been using after the power went out in the house for the blaze, telling the press, “Mistakes happen, man. And it’s my fault for, I guess, leaving something on.” During his appearance on Bwaaa! A King of the Hill Podcast on Saturday, Joss seemed to suggest that he had come to suspect foul play was involved in the tragic fire.
“My ex-wife is involved in Texas, San Antonio real estate, and she was kind of messing with me,” Joss told his hosts of the fire. “Because I’ve been in mental wards and stuff, the courts don’t believe me when I tell them things are happening. But my house got burned down. They could not rule out arson.”
Joss continued of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the fire in a low, echoing tone, “My closest friends said, ‘Jonathan, we know you set that fire… fire… fire. We know you did it for the money… money… money… money. I said, ’Guys, my dogs… dogs… dogs… were there! I would never hurt my dogs!'”
“I would never light my dogs on fire,” Joss insisted, before taking a sharp left turn and joking, “That's why I shot the little fuckers and then I burnt the house down!”
“So my neighbors now are really scared,” Joss remarked.
While, at the time, Joss' dark joke about the tragic house fire played as some off-color comedy, following the shooting that took his life just one day later, we have to wonder if Joss was using humor to mask the actual tension that had been brewing between him and his neighbors since the fire. Throughout the podcast episode, Joss made numerous shocking jokes about serious subjects, which, considering the hardships he faced in the final months of his life, come as no surprise, but it’s hard not to worry that the punchlines were warnings in disguise.
