Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
That Time Alec Baldwin Killed a Woman - The Alec Baldwin "Rust" Case
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
Full Episode
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.
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.
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.
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.
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