HOUSTON >> Investigators are looking into whether the sexual orientation of “King of the Hill” voice actor Jonathan Joss played a role in his shooting death in Texas, authorities said Thursday, walking back a previous statement about the potential motive.

Joss’ husband has claimed the person who killed the actor yelled “violent homophobic slurs” before opening fire outside his home in San Antonio on Sunday night.

A day after the shooting, San Antonio police issued a statement saying they had found “no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Mr. Joss’ murder was related to his sexual orientation.”

But during a news conference Thursday, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said the statement was “premature” and that whether Joss’ sexual orientation played a role in the shooting “is part of the investigation.”

“I will own that and simply say again that we simply shouldn’t have done that. It was way too early in the process for any statement of that nature to be issued,” McManus said.

The police chief said many in the LGBTQ+ community “are feeling anxious and concerned” after Joss’ shooting and that “a lot of it has to do with that premature statement.”

“The loss of Jonathan Joss was tragic, most heavily felt by the LGBTQ+ community,” McManus said.

Texas does not have separate hate crimes charges. But if homophobia is found to have been a motive in the shooting, that could result in a harsher sentence at trial under the state’s hate crimes law.

“We gather the facts, and we give those facts to the district attorney’s office. And then that hate crime designation is determined at sentencing,” McManus said.

The actor’s home burned down in January. Joss’ husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, has said that they were checking mail there Sunday when a man approached them, pulled out a gun and opened fire.

In a statement, de Gonzales said he and Joss had previously faced harassment, much of it “openly homophobic.”