Pop­u­lar ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Ri­car­do “Glad­i­a­tor” Welch was mur­dered in Sam Bou­caud, San­ta Cruz, this morn­ing.

The talk show host had just left his home just around 9 am and was dri­ving to work when he was ap­proached by two gun­men who shot him sev­er­al times.

Welch, 54, lost con­trol of the ve­hi­cle, ran off the road and crashed in­to a wall at the cor­ner of Padang Boule­vard and San­ta Lu­cia Dri­ve.

Welch had stints on nu­mer­ous ra­dio sta­tions, in­clud­ing Pow­er102FM and made ma­jor head­lines in 2017 when he suc­cess­ful­ly won a defama­tion suit against the More 104.7fm fre­quen­cy for la­belling him as gay.

We'll up­date this sto­ry as we re­ceive more in­for­ma­tion.