Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
That Time Alec Baldwin Killed a Woman - The Alec Baldwin "Rust" Case
Wed, 05 Feb 2025
This is the story of Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer, and her fatal mistake on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie Rust
Chapter 1: Who is Hannah Gutierrez and what is her role?
So this woman, her name's Hannah. And Hannah wants nothing more than to impress her dad. Now her dad is kind of a legend in his business. He's probably the most well-respected armorer in Hollywood. An armorer is the person who handles all the pew-pews on a movie set. So one day, Hannah's dad books a really cool gig, and he brings her along as his assistant.
Chapter 2: How did Hannah become a head armorer?
And there, she starts to learn how to handle pew-pews and how to be an armorer herself. So he trains her, and I guess she does pretty well. Because only a year later, she gets hired as head armorer on an indie movie, making her the only female lead armorerer in the industry. So she's immediately kicking ass at this and living up to her dad's expectations.
Then Hannah, when she's 24, she finally gets her big break. She gets hired as the head armorer on a Western movie, a movie produced by and starring Alec Baldwin. And this is huge for Hannah. And it is time she is gonna show everyone that she's just as good as her dad.
Chapter 3: What were Hannah's responsibilities on the set of Rust?
So then bam, Hannah takes this job and she's expected to supervise all the prop weapons at all times and to check each pew-pew before every time it's used. And she's having a great time doing this. She's making friends on set. She's going out and partying with the crew after work. Allegedly, they're sometimes low-key getting high on set.
But then, at some point, Hannah starts to get a little sloppy with her work. She's leaving the armorer's cart unsupervised. She's leaving prop weapons just laying around on set. She's just a little too relaxed for how important this job is. But then one night, after work, Hannah goes out drinking with the crew again. And they're having a great time. She's smoking a little Zaza.
She's doing a little Coca-Cola. But then the next day, she goes to work. And production is behind schedule. And they go into rehearsal. And the assistant director, he needs a revolver on set for a scene. So he starts yelling at Hannah. We need a revolver on the set for rehearsal. So then she runs to get it, and this is where everything goes wrong.
Chapter 4: What went wrong with the prop weapons?
See, this is a movie set, so what is supposed to be in the revolver is what's called a dummy round, which is a round that looks real but isn't. And at some point, somehow, live bullets make their way onto that set and into Hannah's arsenal of dummy rounds. And she unknowingly loads one of those bullets into that pew pew.
So anyway, she runs to get the revolver, which she keeps locked in a safe in the prop truck. So she gets it and she hands it to the assistant director, but she doesn't check it to make sure the rounds in it are actually dummy rounds. And the assistant director also doesn't check it. And he hands it to Alec Baldwin. And Alec Baldwin also doesn't check it.
And I don't actually know if he's supposed to. He's actually in the middle of a scene. But then Baldwin starts rehearsing with it. Now, the cinematographer, she's working the camera. And she starts walking Alec Baldwin through the scene. And her name's Helena. And Helena's like, okay, point that pew-pew right here, right below my armpit.
And as Helena's directing Alec Baldwin where to point the pew-pew, suddenly, bang, the revolver goes off and the whole room freezes. And Helena falls to the ground. She's been shot. And Alec Baldwin, he's confused. He's like, did she faint? Did she have a heart attack? What's going on? And that is when the rest of the crew sees Helena and the director of the movie, Joel, lying on the ground.
Chapter 5: What happened during the tragic shooting incident?
The single bullet had passed through the right side of Helena's chest and into Joel's shoulder. So they're both shot and they're both injured, but Helena is unresponsive. So someone calls 911 and quickly police show up. And a helicopter comes and they airlift Helena to a nearby hospital. And an ambulance comes and takes Joel away. And Joel ends up being fine.
But then police, they bring Alec Baldwin in to question him. And that is where they break the bad news to him about Helena.
Chapter 6: What were the consequences of the shooting?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then, of course, police question Hannah because she's the armorer. And as you can imagine, Hannah is all torn up when she's talking to the cop.
I'm like the only female armorer in the game and I just f***ed up my one-time career. Have you studied armory or did you go to classes or how did you get into it? My dad's the best one of the best armors.
So this story is obviously tragic and sad, and it really captures the public's attention. And it blows up. It's all over the news. And Alec Baldwin, since he's the one who shot Helena, he's got to go and do damage control. And so he goes on ABC and does a big interview. And of course, he's all torn up about it too. But he swears he didn't pull the trigger.
Well, the trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger. So you never pulled the trigger? No, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. Never.
But he does admit to pulling back the hammer, which is allegedly how the gun actually went off. But that whole part is still in dispute. Then a year later, after a long investigation, the local sheriff's department releases a 500 page report about the whole incident. And right after that, suddenly, bam, Hannah is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Here's her mugshot.
So Hannah goes to trial and because she screwed up so bad, they find her guilty of involuntary manslaughter and she's sentenced to 18 months in prison. While Alec Baldwin, he's also charged with involuntary manslaughter and he pleads not guilty and he's waiting on his trial. Okay, so I actually have an update on this. Baldwin's trial actually ended after I filmed this video. So listen to this.
Apparently, some more actual live ammo rounds were eventually found on set, and the prosecuting attorney didn't file them into evidence properly, making it seem as if the prosecuting attorney was trying to withhold this evidence from the court. Now, the existence of these other live rounds, in theory, would have helped Baldwin's case and potentially affected the outcome of the trial.
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