WEBVTT
1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:12.880
Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Read Carter, and welcome
2
00:00:12.919 --> 00:00:16.800
to Celebrity Trials. For the next two days, we're diving
3
00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:20.039
into a case that changed Hollywood forever, A case where
4
00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:22.120
a movie star pulled the trigger on what should have
5
00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.719
been a prop gun and killed a rising cinematographer. A
6
00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:28.760
case that exposed the dirty secret of low budget filmmaking,
7
00:00:29.239 --> 00:00:32.520
that safety is the first thing sacrificed when money gets tight.
8
00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:37.920
October twenty first, twenty twenty one, the Bonanza Creek Ranch
9
00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:41.719
in New Mexico, Alec Baldwin points a Cult forty five
10
00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:45.240
revolver at a camera and pulls the trigger. The gun fires.
11
00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:49.200
Helena Hutchins bleeds out in a helicopter thirty minutes later.
12
00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:53.359
Today we're breaking down how six people in a church
13
00:00:53.439 --> 00:00:57.399
turned into one dead, one wounded, and an entire industry
14
00:00:57.479 --> 00:01:00.399
asking how the hell did a live bullet end up
15
00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:05.120
in a prop gun. Tomorrow will explore the legal circus
16
00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:09.280
that followed, including the shocking moment a judge throughout Baldwin's
17
00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:13.159
case because prosecutors hid bullets in the wrong evidence box.
18
00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:18.319
Spoiler alert. When you're prosecuting someone for hiding evidence, maybe
19
00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:26.159
don't hide evidence yourself. But first let's talk about the
20
00:01:26.159 --> 00:01:30.840
woman who should still be alive. The cinematographer Helena Hutchins
21
00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:34.519
forty two years old, born in Ukraine on a Soviet
22
00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:38.319
military base. Started as a journalist, moved to Los Angeles,
23
00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:42.239
graduated from the American Film Institute, shot over thirty films,
24
00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:46.200
Rising star. She had a husband, Matthew, a nine year
25
00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:50.480
old son, andros She was on the verge of breaking through.
26
00:01:51.319 --> 00:01:53.879
Everyone who worked with her said the same thing. She
27
00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:59.079
had it that indefinable quality that separates the working professionals
28
00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:01.959
from the artists. She could make a six million dollar
29
00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:05.680
budget look like sixty million. Rust was supposed to be
30
00:02:05.719 --> 00:02:09.319
another step up the ladder, a western starring and produced
31
00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:13.479
by Alec Baldwin. Not a blockbuster, but a respectable project
32
00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:16.400
with a legitimate star, the kind of film that gets
33
00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:19.599
you noticed by the people who matter. Instead, it became
34
00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:24.039
the film that killed her. On October twenty first, twenty
35
00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:28.280
twenty one, Helena posted what would be her last Instagram photo.
36
00:02:28.919 --> 00:02:32.319
She's on a horse at Golden Hour the New Mexico Sun,
37
00:02:32.439 --> 00:02:37.280
painting everything amber and beautiful. The caption one of the
38
00:02:37.319 --> 00:02:39.599
perks of shooting a Western is you get to ride
39
00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:44.280
horses on your day off. Six hours later, she'd be dead.
40
00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:49.400
The morning of October twenty first, twenty twenty one, call
41
00:02:49.479 --> 00:02:53.960
time six thirty am. Except they're already behind schedule, way behind.
42
00:02:54.479 --> 00:02:57.280
The camera crew six people who actually knew what they
43
00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:00.479
were doing had walked off the job that morning, packed
44
00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:04.280
up and left. Why because they hadn't been paid properly,
45
00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:08.120
because they were promised hotel rooms in Santa Fe, thirty
46
00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:11.479
miles away, and instead were being forced to drive an
47
00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:15.039
hour each way from Albuquerque. Because there had already been
48
00:03:15.159 --> 00:03:21.360
three accidental gun discharges on set, three in twelve days. Yeah,
49
00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:25.400
you heard that right. Baldwin's stunt double had accidentally fired
50
00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:28.560
two blanks when told the gun was cold. The prop
51
00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:31.000
master had shot herself in the foot with a blank.
52
00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.120
This was not a safe set. This was a disaster
53
00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:38.159
waiting to happen. The producers scrambled to bring in a
54
00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:42.280
non union camera crew, scabs, if we're being honest, people
55
00:03:42.360 --> 00:03:44.719
desperate enough for the work that they'd cross a picket
56
00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:49.719
line of safety concerns. Meanwhile, the armorer, the person responsible
57
00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:52.439
for every weapon on set, was a twenty four year
58
00:03:52.439 --> 00:03:56.199
old named Hannah Gutierrez red. This was only her second
59
00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:59.800
film as head armorer. The first was The Old Way
60
00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:03.719
with Nicholas Cage, where crew members said she was careless
61
00:04:03.719 --> 00:04:07.120
with weapons. One crew member said she once handed a
62
00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:10.000
gun to an eleven year old actor without checking at first.
63
00:04:10.759 --> 00:04:14.439
Why would anyone hire an inexperienced armorer with a bad
64
00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:19.439
reputation money? She was cheap, and on a production where
65
00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:22.920
the camera crew was walking off over pay disputes, cheap
66
00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:31.199
was the only qualification that mattered. The church scene, one
67
00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:35.759
thirty pm. They're rehearsing in a church, not a real church,
68
00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:40.000
a movie church built decades ago for westerns. Baldwin is
69
00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:44.360
dressed in full costume, dirty coat, leather vest, old timey pants.
70
00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:47.560
He's playing Harlan Rust, an outlaw trying to save his
71
00:04:47.639 --> 00:04:51.759
grandson from a death sentence. The scene they're rehearsing, rust
72
00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:55.959
sits in a pew, sees lawman approaching, draws his gun
73
00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:58.920
in a cross draw, pulling from the holster on his
74
00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:01.720
left hip with his right hand, and points it at
75
00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:05.959
the camera. They've just come back from lunch. Dave Halls,
76
00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:09.079
the assistant director goes outside to a cart where three
77
00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:14.399
guns are waiting. The armorer Gutierra's Reid had prepped them earlier,
78
00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.439
or so she said. Here's where everything goes wrong. Halls
79
00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:20.759
grabs one of the guns. He's supposed to check it.
80
00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:25.279
That's literally his job to verify the armorer's work. He
81
00:05:25.399 --> 00:05:28.240
later admitted he should have checked all six chambers. He
82
00:05:28.319 --> 00:05:31.680
checked three. Maybe he saw what he thought were three
83
00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:35.079
dummy rounds, bullets that look real but have no gunpowder,
84
00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:38.040
just a B B rattling around inside so you can
85
00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:42.439
hear their fake. He walks back into the church, cold gun.
86
00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:45.560
He yells the two words that are supposed to mean
87
00:05:45.879 --> 00:05:48.839
this weapon is safe, the two words that everyone on
88
00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:52.720
set relies on to mean you won't die today. He
89
00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:56.720
hands the gun to Baldwin. The shot. Baldwin is sitting
90
00:05:56.759 --> 00:05:59.720
in the pew. Helena Hutchins is behind the camera with
91
00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:03.800
Joe Susa, the director. She's telling Baldwin where to aim.
92
00:06:04.079 --> 00:06:07.439
Right here, she says, pointing to her armpit area. She
93
00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:10.600
wants to see how the shot will look. Baldwin draws
94
00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:15.079
the gun. He's practicing the move draw cock point, draw
95
00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:18.800
cock point. According to Baldwin, he pulls the hammer back
96
00:06:18.839 --> 00:06:22.279
and releases it without pulling the trigger. The gun fires.
97
00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:27.399
According to the FBI, that's physically impossible. Their testing showed
98
00:06:27.399 --> 00:06:30.199
the gun could not fire without the trigger being pulled.
99
00:06:30.519 --> 00:06:33.000
They literally broke the gun trying to make it fire
100
00:06:33.079 --> 00:06:36.480
without a trigger pull Either way, the gun fires. Joel
101
00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:39.519
Susa hears what sounded like a whip and then a
102
00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:44.160
loud pop. The bullet goes through Helena's chest, exits her back,
103
00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:49.079
and lodges in Susa's shoulder. Helena says, that was no good.
104
00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:52.879
That was no good at all. Then she collapses. The
105
00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:58.720
aftermath chaos, complete chaos. Script supervisor Mami Mitchell calls nine
106
00:06:58.759 --> 00:07:01.839
to one one. We've had two people accidentally shot on
107
00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:04.800
a movie set by a prop gun. We need help immediately,
108
00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:07.720
the nine to one to one operator. Was it loaded
109
00:07:07.720 --> 00:07:11.600
with a real bullet? Mitchell, I don't know. I can't
110
00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:16.079
tell you that someone's performing CPR on Helena. She's conscious
111
00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:19.439
but fading blood everywhere. They're in the middle of nowhere.
112
00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:22.680
The Bonanza Creek ranch is an hour from Albuquerque, thirty
113
00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:26.639
minutes from Santa Fe. Baldwin is in shock. He keeps saying,
114
00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:32.079
what happened, what happened. He's covered in Helena's blood. The
115
00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:35.680
medics arrive. They load Helena into a helicopter. She's airlifted
116
00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:39.240
to University of New Mexico Hospital. At three point thirty
117
00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:42.360
seven PM, less than two hours after the shot. She's
118
00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:46.839
pronounced dead. Joel Souza survives. The bullet is removed from
119
00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:49.560
his shoulder. He's released from the hospital. The next day.
120
00:07:49.879 --> 00:07:52.639
Baldwin changes out of his costume and hands over his
121
00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:55.959
bloody clothes to the police. The gun is secured, the
122
00:07:56.079 --> 00:08:13.120
church becomes a crime scene. Back in a moment, Welcome
123
00:08:13.160 --> 00:08:16.639
back to celebrity trials. I'm Reed Carter, and we're examining
124
00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:20.639
the rust shooting that killed Helena Hutchins the gun. Let's
125
00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:22.560
talk about how a live bullet ended up in a
126
00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:26.439
prop gun. This is the million dollar question. Actually it's
127
00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:29.279
the one hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars question. That's
128
00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:33.039
what New Mexico OSHA fined the production for safety violations
129
00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:37.519
that led to an avoidable death. The prosecution's theory, Hannah
130
00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.960
Gutieras Reed brought live rounds onto the set, maybe by accident,
131
00:08:42.200 --> 00:08:45.679
maybe through negligence, but she brought them. She mixed them
132
00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:48.799
up with dummy rounds, she loaded them into guns she
133
00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:53.080
didn't check properly. She was sloppy, careless, overwhelmed, and in
134
00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:57.120
way over her head. Gutiera's reed was juggling two jobs,
135
00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:03.120
armorer and props assistant. That's insane. The armorer's job is
136
00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:07.639
to maintain complete control over every weapon, every round of ammunition,
137
00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:13.360
every blank, every dummy. The props assistant handles everything else,
138
00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:18.200
coffee cups, newspapers, furniture. You can't do both. It's like
139
00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:21.279
asking the pilot to also be the flight attendant. But
140
00:09:21.399 --> 00:09:25.879
remember cheap. This production was cheap. They could hire one
141
00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:28.720
person for two jobs, or two people for two jobs.
142
00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:34.879
Guess which one costs less. The defense theory someone else
143
00:09:34.960 --> 00:09:38.759
brought the live rounds. Maybe it was sabotage. Maybe someone
144
00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:41.960
was using the guns for target practice after hours. That
145
00:09:42.039 --> 00:09:46.159
happened on other sets. The investigators never properly investigated. They
146
00:09:46.279 --> 00:09:49.279
rushed to judgment. They needed someone to blame, and the
147
00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:52.679
twenty four year old armorer was an easy target. Here's
148
00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:55.720
what we know for sure. Six live rounds were found
149
00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:59.120
on set six. One in the gun that killed Helena,
150
00:09:59.480 --> 00:10:01.600
five more, or in a box of ammunition in a
151
00:10:01.639 --> 00:10:04.840
gun belt just lying around. How do you not notice
152
00:10:04.919 --> 00:10:08.960
live rounds. They're heavier than blanks. They look different. Any
153
00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:12.120
competent armorer can tell the difference by sight, by weight,
154
00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:15.799
by sound. You shake a dummy round, it rattles. You
155
00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:19.200
shake a live round, it's solid. But Gutiera's read didn't
156
00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:22.120
shake them. She later admitted that she said she didn't
157
00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:25.360
need to shake every round. Every time she trusted her suppliers,
158
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:34.679
she trusted her process. Her process killed someone. Within hours
159
00:10:34.679 --> 00:10:38.679
of the shooting. Text messages start flying. Gutierra's read texts
160
00:10:38.679 --> 00:10:41.440
the prop master, I just want to go home. The
161
00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:44.679
prop master text back, don't talk to anyone about anything.
162
00:10:45.720 --> 00:10:49.320
Gutierra's read texts her mentor. I was so sure there
163
00:10:49.320 --> 00:10:53.720
were no live rounds on set that night. According to prosecutors,
164
00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:57.720
she does something incredibly stupid. She gives a small bag
165
00:10:57.759 --> 00:11:00.840
of cocaine to someone else, gets rid of it because
166
00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:04.759
nothing says I'm innocent, like ditching drugs after someone dies
167
00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:08.440
on your watch. Dave Halls, the assistant director who handed
168
00:11:08.440 --> 00:11:12.440
Baldwin the gun. He lawyers up immediately. Smart move. He'll
169
00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:16.000
eventually plead no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon.
170
00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:20.600
Six months of unsupervised probation, no jail time. The man
171
00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:23.440
who yelled cold gun when the gun was hot gets
172
00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:28.120
to walk Baldwin. He goes on ABC News with George Stephanopoulos,
173
00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:31.480
sits down for an hour long interview, says he didn't
174
00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:34.039
pull the trigger, says the gun just went off, says
175
00:11:34.039 --> 00:11:37.879
he's heartbroken. He also says something that will haunt him.
176
00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:41.240
I feel someone is responsible for what happened, and I
177
00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:45.799
can't say who that is. But it's not me, really, Alc,
178
00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:50.279
you pointed the gun, you pulled the trigger, or released
179
00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:53.759
the hammer, or whatever version you're selling today. You were
180
00:11:53.799 --> 00:11:57.720
also the producer who hired the inexperienced armorer, who pushed
181
00:11:57.720 --> 00:12:01.039
for faster and cheaper, who created the conditions where safety
182
00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:10.320
became optional. But it's not you. The victims. Matthew Hutchins
183
00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:14.320
lost his wife, Andros Hutchins lost his mother. He was nine.
184
00:12:14.679 --> 00:12:18.519
He's thirteen now, four years without his mom, four years
185
00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:24.639
of birthdays, Christmases, school plays, soccer games, motherless. The film
186
00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:29.600
industry lost a rising talent. Female cinematographers are rare. Good
187
00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:33.679
ones are rarer. Great ones are unicorns. Helena was on
188
00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:36.519
her way to being great. We'll never see what she
189
00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:39.320
would have shot. What stories she would have told with
190
00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:42.840
light and shadow, What young filmmakers she would have mentored,
191
00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:46.799
What barriers she would have broken, All because someone couldn't
192
00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:49.080
be bothered to check if a gun was actually cold
193
00:12:49.879 --> 00:12:55.519
the culture. Here's what nobody wants to talk about. This
194
00:12:55.679 --> 00:12:58.759
was inevitable. Hollywood has been playing with real guns for
195
00:12:58.799 --> 00:13:02.879
a century. They use blanks, which are still dangerous. Brandon
196
00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:05.799
Lee died from a blank in nineteen ninety three filming
197
00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:09.679
The Crow. They use dummy rounds which look real but aren't,
198
00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:14.440
and sometimes, apparently they use real bullets. Why why does
199
00:13:14.480 --> 00:13:17.600
Hollywood need real guns at all? Because it looks cool,
200
00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:20.519
because audiences can tell the difference between a real gun
201
00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:22.639
and a fake one, because the weight of a real
202
00:13:22.679 --> 00:13:25.600
weapon changes how an actor moves, how they hold it,
203
00:13:25.799 --> 00:13:29.200
how they respect it. Except Alec Baldwin didn't respect it.
204
00:13:29.519 --> 00:13:31.799
He pointed a real gun at a real person and
205
00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:36.240
pulled the trigger during a rehearsal, not during filming, during rehearsal,
206
00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:39.639
when the cameras weren't even rolling. The first rule of
207
00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:42.840
gun safety never point a gun at anything you don't
208
00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:46.799
intend to destroy. The second rule, treat every gun as
209
00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:50.000
if it's loaded. The third rule keep your finger off
210
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.120
the trigger until you're ready to shoot. Baldwin violated all
211
00:13:53.159 --> 00:14:01.279
three and then claimed he wasn't responsible. Tomorrow will dive
212
00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:05.600
into the prosecutions. How the armorer got eighteen months in prison,
213
00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:10.279
How Baldwin's case fell apart when prosecutors hid evidence, How
214
00:14:10.279 --> 00:14:14.039
the judge said eight words that made Baldwin sob with relief.
215
00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:19.679
Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted. But today
216
00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:24.759
remember this. Helena Hutchins died because of a series of choices.
217
00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:29.080
The choice to hire an inexperienced armorer, the choice to
218
00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:33.279
make her do two jobs, the choice to ignore previous misfires,
219
00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:36.639
the choice to rush through safety checks, the choice to
220
00:14:36.679 --> 00:14:39.159
point a gun at a human being, the choice to
221
00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:42.399
pull the trigger. Every one of those choices was made
222
00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:45.279
to save time or money, and they cost a woman
223
00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:49.320
her life. The movie was called Rust. It was about
224
00:14:49.320 --> 00:14:52.840
an outlaw trying to save his grandson. Instead, it became
225
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:55.159
about an industry that killed a mother to save a
226
00:14:55.200 --> 00:14:59.159
few bucks. I'm read Carter, and this is celebrity trials.
227
00:15:00.159 --> 00:15:07.159
Point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy,