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Johnny Wactor's co-worker reveals staff at Downtown LA nightclub complained over lack of safe parking spots for late night workers after string of violent crime in area
The woman who held tragic General Hospital star Johnny Wactor in her arms as he lay dying from a gunshot wound has told DailyMail.com she is 'eternally grateful' he did not die alone and has called for a reckoning over the rampant crime plaguing LA.
Anita Joy, 34, first met Wactor, 37, eight years ago but reconnected with him in September when both were hired to work at downtown LA nightspot Sinners y Santos.
She says staff at the venue had been warning bosses of the perilous nature of the streets surrounding it for months but were fobbed off even after a woman was robbed outside late last year.
Now, Anita is calling for the LADP to step up their efforts to catch the 37-year-old's killers and says more should be done to protect bar staff who end their shifts in the small hours of the morning.
She said: 'It all happened so fast. I just remember the man standing up - he was by Johnny's tire, and he stood straight up, and you could see the whites of his eyes.
Anita Joy, 34, told DailyMail.com she is 'eternally grateful' her friend and co-worker Johnny Wactor did not die alone after he took a bullet for her last Saturday
Anita, who was Wactor's co-worker at Downtown LA nightclub Sinners y Santos, revealed he was shot at close range as the pair were walking to their cars after finishing a bartending shift
'We surprised him as much as he surprised us, I think, and that's all I know of him. He was just a man in black, stood up in a ski mask.'
She added: 'We need to really crack down on the way that these criminals, even when they are caught, are slapped on the wrist and sent back on the streets.
'Obviously this involves a murder and that is hopefully not going to be the case but that's why we need to raise awareness because he was killed over a $300 car part.'
Wactor, who Anita describes as 'one of the best men I ever met', had been working Friday and Saturday shifts at Sinners y Santos since September.
Along with Anita, he was assigned to the gothic-style bar that dominates the cathedral-themed club and was, she says, a joy to work with.
The bar's clientele also adored him: with his sunny demeanor and good looks he was, she says, frequently the person with the most tips at the end of the night.
But as swank as the Level 8 entertainment complex it sits in is, Anita says staff complained from the start over the lack of parking available to them – telling DailyMail.com she has spent around $1,000 of her own money parking on the street near the venue since September.
Despite repeated entreaties to Houston Hospitality, who own the venue, Anita says staff were fobbed off even after a woman was robbed outside late last year.
Instead, she says managers told staff to leave in groups for safety as she and Wactor did on Saturday when they set off for Hope Street on foot with two other men.
Anita said: 'We were with two of our other coworkers, so I'm walking with three large men. I had zero thoughts of danger on my mind.
Wactor died in Anita's arms after he took a bullet to protect her from armed thieves, she revealed
The General Hospital star had taken up a job at the new extravagant nightclub, Sinners y Santos, known for live DJs and its cathedral-themed décor which includes vast stained-glass windows and spectacular views of the LA skyline
Above is the desolate sidewalk – with a tattered piece of police tape still lingering – on Hope Street, in Downtown LA, where Wactor was tragically gunned down on Saturday while trying to protect his female friend during the theft
The nightclub is one of eight clubs, bars, and restaurants in the Level 8 entertainment complex attached to the Downtown AC and Moxy hotel building
'When we leave, we all just shoot the s*** and talk and laugh and joke about things, joke about the night or joke to each other.'
While the other two men carried on, she and Wactor made a left on to Hope Street but noticed nothing amiss until they reached their cars.
'The second that we walked up, we thought he was potentially getting towed or something, so we were just trying to stop it right away,' Anita said.
'We stepped down into the street, and he said: 'Hey, man, this is my car. What are you doing?' That's when we realized they weren't tow men.'
Anita is now calling for a reckoning over the rampant crime plaguing LA
Anita says Wactor was professionally dressed in a white shirt and black vest on the night he died and could not have looked like a threat to the trio of robbers but as he approached, moving the 34-year-old Pennsylvania native behind him, one stood up and shot him.
She said: 'I just hear this crack and I look up and Johnny's coming backwards towards me. The shot was very close range. I think it was just like an arm's length.
'The force of that sent him backwards, he kind of lost his footing and came straight backwards toward me and I grabbed his shoulders, but the momentum of him coming back turned us around.
'Then I'm facing him, holding his shoulders, and we just toppled to the ground. And as we're going down, I was like, "honey, are you okay? Are you okay?" And he was like, "no, shot".
'He didn't say anything else after that.'
Anita told how she opened up his shirt and began screaming once she saw the devastating wound on his chest.
A security guard named Bryan, who also works at the club, heard and came sprinting down the street to help them while dialing 911.
A group of Wactor's friends have since launched an awareness campaign to call local officials to help find his killer
Wactor, who Anita describes as 'one of the best men I ever met', had been working Friday and Saturday shifts at Sinners y Santos since September
The 37-year-old actor and bartender is seen arm wrestling with another coworker at the bar in a photo shared by a friend
She described how Bryan began CPR guided by the 911 dispatcher but told how Wactor was already flickering in and out of consciousness and was struggling to breathe due to what she believes was a lung blown out by the bullet.
Anita says they cobbled together a tourniquet using her full-length denim jacket while she begged him to stay with her and says the scene has repeatedly replayed in her mind since the shooting.
She told DailyMail.com: 'It's replaying on its own, but I'm also replaying it to keep it fresh in case I can possibly remember anything specific.
'And those are my final moments with him. So, it's dear to me, but it's also what it is, and awful.'
When medical help arrived, she says, there was little they could do.
Anita said: 'I did not go with him to the hospital because they were trying their fastest to just take him and get him there, to try to keep him with us.
'But he pretty much died in my arms. There was nothing really they could do, they briefly tried CPR, and then he was in the ambulance right away. They were just counting seconds.'
Anita was left behind to talk to the cops and stayed with them until 9am. Later, she received a phone call from Wactor's devastated mother Scarlett.
Scarlett, says Anita, had been concerned about her wellbeing, telling her she was glad she was okay and relieved that she didn't share her son's fate.
Both women also found some comfort in the fact Wactor didn't die alone, with Anita telling DailyMail.com she is thankful to have been at his side.
She said: 'No matter how horrible this is, I'm eternally grateful to have been there with him.
'Had this happened to him alone and I woke up the next day, safe at home, and found out that this had happened to him and he was by himself, that would've been a hundred times harder for me, for his family, for his friends.
Wactor appeared on over 160 episodes of General Hospital as the character Brando Corbin from 2020 to 2022. He is pictured in the show alongside actress Laura Wright
Wactor is pictured above in a family photo with his mother, and two brothers. His family is asking the public for help in bringing his body back to his native South Carolina
'It's like there's a little bit of a glimmer of peace in that at least he had somebody there who also just really cares about him and who he cared about genuinely.
'That's the only piece of comfort that we can take from this right now.'
Anita says she will never return to work at Sinners y Santos and says the club's owners need to take responsibility for not providing safe parking spots for their workers who routinely leave in the early hours of the morning.
She said: 'Everybody wants to go out and get drunk and have a good time and party, but the people that are serving them are in danger when they go home because we're leaving after everybody's already in bed, and we need to be protected.
'We need to have our employers be concerned for us and make things happen, rather than just saying, oh, we'll have a security guard walk out with you.
'There was a security guard right there doing CPR on Johnny afterwards.'
On Friday afternoon, Wactor’s friends held a vigil for him at the spot where he died and another memorial is planned on June 15 in LA’s North Hollywood Park.
That event, named ‘A Mile for Johnny’, aims to pile pressure on the LAPD and keep his murder firmly in the spotlight.
They have also launched an awareness campaign to call local officials to help find his killer.
In the short term, Anita says she's planning to travel to South Carolina to meet his mother in person and will attend his funeral which is due to be held later this month.
But most of all, she wants to give Scarlett a hug. She said: 'I'm going to be going down to visit them in South Carolina and just give her a hug.
'I told her on the phone today, I was like, I just want to hug you. We're looking forward to that. Maybe that'll be a little bit of peace for both of us.'