Ever since an actual, dwell bullet discharged from the gun that Alec Baldwin was rehearsing with on the set of the movie “Rust” in 2021, killing the cinematographer and wounding the director, one query has vexed everybody concerned: How did dwell ammunition find yourself on a movie set, the place — all agree — it completely ought to by no means have been?
The movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was discovered responsible on Wednesday of involuntary manslaughter within the loss of life of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and faces as much as 18 months in jail. The jury discovered that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, 26, had behaved negligently by failing to examine that the entire rounds she loaded into Mr. Baldwin’s revolver have been dummies, that are inert rounds that look actual however can’t be fired.
The query of the place the dwell ammunition got here from within the first place has hung over the case from the beginning. The unique investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Workplace didn’t attain a conclusion on the place the dwell rounds had come from.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors sought to persuade jurors that it was Ms. Gutierrez-Reed who was chargeable for bringing the rounds onto the set. The protection asserted that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, who didn’t testify, was not at fault, and tried to focus consideration on the film’s main weapons and ammunition provider, Seth Kenney, who took the stand and denied duty.
Here’s what emerged throughout the trial in regards to the dwell ammunition, and the place it could have come from.
Prosecutors zeroed in on a field of rounds from the set.
When investigators arrived on the chaotic scene shortly after the capturing, on Oct. 21, 2021, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed confirmed a lieutenant from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Workplace a cart the place she stored weapons and ammunition and drew his consideration to a field of ammunition the place she mentioned that she had retrieved the rounds she put in Mr. Baldwin’s revolver.
“So right here’s the field that I bought them out of,” Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, visibly shaken, informed the lieutenant, Tim Benavidez, in line with body-camera footage that was proven to the jury.
On the witness stand, Lieutenant Benavidez mentioned that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed had proven him an oblong white field labeled “45 LONG COLT DUMMIES.” Jurors have been proven {a photograph} of the field that was taken in his patrol automobile.
Investigators discovered a dwell spherical in that field. It was one in every of six recognized to be on the movie set, which included the one which killed Ms. Hutchins; two that have been found on high of the prop cart; one which was in a gun belt assigned to an actor and one within the gun belt assigned to Mr. Baldwin, who was taking part in a grizzled outlaw within the film.
In a later police interview that was performed for the jury, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed mentioned that she had provided two containers of dummies to the “Rust” manufacturing that had been left over from one other manufacturing she had labored on. She mentioned that she had taken them from a bag, the place that they had been stored unfastened, and checked that they have been dummies earlier than placing them into containers.
When Cpl. Alexandria Hancock, the lead investigator on the case, requested Ms. Gutierrez-Reed throughout that interview what these containers appeared like, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed confirmed her a photograph on her cellphone.
“Does this look precisely just like the field of dummies that Mr. Benavidez took from the prop cart on Oct. 21, 2021?” Ms. Morrissey requested Corporal Hancock at trial, exhibiting the jury the picture that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed had displayed.
“Sure, it appears precisely prefer it,” she replied.
The prosecution mentioned one other picture pointed to Ms. Gutierrez-Reed because the supply of the dwell rounds.
One of many prosecution’s key items of proof was an iPhone picture of Ms. Gutierrez-Reed through which she is holding a gun and has a tray of ammunition sitting on her lap. Sarah Zachry, the pinnacle of props on “Rust,” testified that she took the picture on Oct. 10 to make sure they have been sustaining continuity on the manufacturing with regard to props.
The prosecution argued that no less than two rounds seen within the tray on her lap, which have distinctive silver-colored primers, have been dwell rounds. They usually mentioned that the truth that the picture was taken on Oct. 10 — two days earlier than the manufacturing bought extra .45-caliber Lengthy Colt dummy rounds from the movie’s fundamental provider, Mr. Kenney — urged that these dwell rounds had come from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed.
In her closing arguments, Ms. Morrissey in contrast the Styrofoam bullet tray proven on Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lap with a photograph of the Styrofoam bullet tray that was taken out of the field of ammunition that Lieutenant Benavidez retrieved after the capturing. She argued that each photographs confirmed the identical tray, and identified that one of many rounds — one with a silver primer, which the F.B.I. later decided was a dwell spherical — was “in the very same place” as within the earlier picture.
“Women and gents, we name that circumstantial proof,” she mentioned, after main the jury by way of a protracted collection of images to make the case. “However that’s a mountain of circumstantial proof.”
Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s lead lawyer, Jason Bowles, informed the jury that “you can not inform a dwell spherical from a dummy by an image.”
And Mr. Bowles mentioned that jurors mustn’t depend on the concept that the rounds present in these ammunition containers have been the identical containers that they had been delivered to set in as a result of “these rounds have been loaded out and in of those containers every day.” He mentioned that “there’s affordable doubt everywhere.”
Talking exterior the courthouse after the decision on Wednesday, one of many jurors, Alberto Sanchez, mentioned that the jurors had been satisfied that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed had introduced the dwell rounds to the set. “We expect she did,” he mentioned.
The protection tried to focus consideration on the movie’s provider.
Ms. Gutierrez-Reed informed investigators that the ammunition from the “Rust” set got here from three sources: Mr. Kenney, herself and a provider named Billy Ray.
Mr. Kenney and Ms. Zachry each testified that whereas Billy Ray had provided the manufacturing with some dummy rounds, none have been .45-caliber Lengthy Colt rounds, the type utilized in Mr. Baldwin’s gun.
Legal professionals for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed sought to focus consideration on Mr. Kenney, who testified that he provided a single field of .45-caliber Lengthy Colt dummy rounds to the “Rust” set.
When investigators searched Mr. Kenney’s workplace in Albuquerque, they recovered .45-caliber dwell ammunition that he had saved there. He testified that it got here from one other manufacturing earlier than “Rust” — “1883,” a “Yellowstone” spinoff — the place he labored with Thell Reed, a well-known Hollywood armorer who’s Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s stepfather.
Mr. Kenney testified that in that manufacturing, some forged members had left the set to shoot dwell ammunition — together with some .45-caliber Lengthy Colt rounds — in what he known as “cowboy coaching camp.”
Mr. Kenney testified that Mr. Reed had provided the dwell rounds for “1883,” and mentioned that after the coaching camp, Mr. Kenney had taken the remaining dwell ammunition — together with greater than 100 .45-caliber rounds — again to New Mexico with him.
Marissa Poppell, the crime scene technician who inventoried proof from the set, testified that when investigators searched Mr. Kenney’s workplace and storage location, often called PDQ Arm & Prop, they recovered .45-caliber Lengthy Colt dwell ammunition from a grey bin labeled “LIVE AMMO 1883,” which Mr. Kenney saved within the toilet of his workplace.
“Did any of them look equivalent to the dwell rounds discovered on set?” Ms. Morrissey requested.
“No,” Ms. Poppell replied.
Ms. Poppell testified that the field of .45-caliber Lengthy Colt dummy rounds that Mr. Kenney provided to the set didn’t include any dwell ammunition.
Throughout his testimony, Mr. Kenney asserted that the dwell rounds couldn’t have come from him as a result of he had checked the dummy rounds, shaking them in order that he may hear the rattle of a BB inside, a standard option to present a spherical is inert.
The protection raised questions in regards to the preliminary investigation.
Legal professionals for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed have repeatedly highlighted the truth that the police’s search of Mr. Kenney’s workplace didn’t happen till greater than a month after the deadly capturing, leaving open the potential for proof tampering.
“A delay of some days might be a problem,” testified Scott Elliott, a non-public investigator employed to assist the protection. “However a month is — you possibly can do something in a month.”
Why was some ammunition thrown out after the capturing?
Ms. Zachry, the pinnacle of props, testified that after the deadly capturing, she unloaded two different weapons that had been loaded with what she believed to have been dummies and threw the rounds away in a trash can, and solely informed the police later within the investigation.
Ms. Zachry, who signed a cooperation settlement that protects her from prosecution so long as she testifies honestly, denied that she had been making an attempt to cover proof.
“In a state of shock and panic,” she testified, “I feel it was a reactive determination.”
