Johnny Wactor was killed while shielding his friend and co-worker, Anita Joy, from gunfire.
Anita Joy is detailing Johnny Wactor's final moments.
In an exclusive interview with ET's Kevin Frazier, Joy -- who bartended at Level 8 night club with the late actor -- described her last moments with Wactor before he was killed by a gunshot wound to his chest. He was 37.
The tragic incident happened in the early hours of Saturday, May 25, after Joy and Wactor's Friday night shift at the club in downtown Los Angeles. The duo, along with two other employees, decided to walk out to their cars together, a typical experience for the group.
"It's mostly men on our bar staff. There's me and a couple of other ladies that are bartenders, but mostly guys, big strong guys," Joy told ET. "We're all very adamant of nobody walks out alone. We're veteran bartenders, we've been doing this for a long time, we know the risks... We always, always took care of each other that way."
At the street corner, Joy and Wactor split from their other co-workers as they were parked in a different area.
"As we're walking up, everything is dark. There's not really a lot of lighting there. There are big trees and stuff covering everything," Joy explained. "We're just shooting the s**t, talking and having fun. As we walk up to the back of my car, I'm like, 'OK this is me.' He's like, 'Oh, I'm right in front of you.' We parked at different times, so it was very random that he was directly in front of me."
It was then, seeing three men, that Joy and Wactor realized that something was amiss and he put his hand in front of her to indicate that she should stay back.
"He's a protector," Joy said of her pal of eight years. "... He genuinely just cared about me. He would've done that with anyone, [even] if he didn't know them."
When they first assessed the situation, Joy and Wactor thought his car was being towed.
"He walked down onto the street between the two cars, and as we see over his car, there's a man down there and he has a big jack and all the sudden, we were like, 'Oh, this is not [getting] towed,'" she recalled. "... Johnny was directly in front of me and he's like, 'Man, this is my car. What are you doing?' I think we startled him as much as they startled us. They kind of scrambled. I was right behind Johnny to the left a little bit and he had both hands up."
"He stepped forward -- not confronting the guy, not having fists, he had his hands up to his sides, open palms -- and he's like, 'Hey, man,'" Joy added. "I was like looking down for a second and I hear a crack and the guy just shot him. They all jumped into the car and they took off. It was just instantaneous... The guy easily could of just jumped back into the car and sped off or shoved Johnny or something, but they just shot him close contact."
With that, Wactor fell backwards onto Joy, "tumbling with his whole bodyweight."
"He turns me around and we both go toppling towards the ground. As I turn and grab him, I was like, 'Honey, are you OK?' 'Cause I didn't hear a fight. I don't think there were any words exchanged from their side. He went, 'Nope, shot,'" she remembered. "... There's no time to think during this, but I wasn't feeling like, 'Oh my God, my friend is dying.' This was like, 'OK, he got shot, what's next?' I was thinking [he was shot in] maybe a leg or arm."
It was only after Joy unbuttoned Wactor's vest and shirt that she "noticed the blood."
"I am holding him and screaming my head off for help, because there's no one else around, the streets are bare," she said. "Then a security from my work was crossing the street at the same time to come to his car and he came running over immediately calling 911. I had a long denim jacket, so we took that off and we wrapped it around him and tied it around the wound to try to stop the bleeding and then [the security guard] tried CPR on him."
Throughout the ordeal, Joy said that Wactor "was just very limp" after he said his last words: "Nope, shot."
"He was just kind of flickering in and out of consciousness, but he kept making big gasps," she said. "... I was screaming at him, like, 'Johnny, stay with me! Johnny, stay with me!'... He was just kind of gurgling... I was screaming at him to stay with me and that I love him and just begging him [to stay with me]. Those were my final words to him."
In the wake of Wactor's death, Joy is dealing with an "incredible amount of anger."
"That's something that I have been battling as far as my rollercoaster of what I'm feeling... because there's no need for him to be shot. He could have been shoved or kicked or pushed away for them to get out of there, but these men went out there with a loaded gun at their disposal, right by their side ready to go," she said. "... They had the full intention of going and getting this $350 car part, whatever it is, stealing that from someone, and then being able to shoot them if they think necessary... There's a really, really dark place for people like that."
Making the situation even more challenging is the fact that Joy considers the General Hospital star, who appeared on the soap as Brando Corbin, to be "literally one of the best men I've ever met in my life."
"I just love him dearly and everyone did. I'm just grateful for him. He was such a goofy, kind person and made everybody feel loved by him and seen by him," she said. "... He just wanted so many good things for everyone all the time. There wasn't a negative bone in his body... He was just so kind; kindness just oozed out of him. He made everybody feel so good. It just came naturally to him, that was his character."
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