"Rust" Gunmaker Tells Court That Alec Baldwin Had to Fire Weapon to Fatally Shoot Cinematographer

Facing 18 months behind bars, Alec Baldwin's criminal trial for involuntary manslaughter began on Wednesday with the prosectors & defense going at each other's case very hard. 

The second day of trial went deep into the origins of a vintage Colt .45 revolver and the question of how live bullets got to the set of “Rust.”

Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter over his role in the fatal shooting of the film’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of "Rust" on October 21, 2021. He faces up to 18 months in prison if he is convicted.

Prosecutors maintain that he negligently fired the weapon while preparing for a scene. Baldwin has denied pulling the trigger and always insisted that while he cocked the hammer, he did not pull the trigger and the gun somehow went off on its own. His lawyers argue that his gun handling is a distraction from the central question of how six live bullets — including the fatal one — got to set.

Alessandro Pietta, the gun’s manufacturer, came from Italy to testify about his company’s quality control measures. Under questioning from prosecutor Erlinda Johnson, he testified that the gun would not fire without a pull of the trigger.

“You want to release the hammer, you have to pull the trigger,” Pietta said in accented English in Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer’s courtroom.

The gun was imported from Italy in 2017 and displayed at industry trade shows for several years before being sold to Seth Kenney, the man who supplied guns and dummy ammunition to “Rust.”

Baldwin’s defense team used its cross-examination of a crime scene technician to argue that investigators did not fully pursue whether Kenney also accidentally supplied the live bullets. The prosecution has long maintained that there is no evidence that the bullets came from him. 

The defense has argued that after failing to track down the source of the bullets, investigators turned their attention to prosecuting Baldwin instead.

During Thursday’s testimony, the lawyers went through photos of live and dummy rounds and asked jurors to pay attention to minute differences in size, shape, and coloring. 

The testimony did contain at least one new revelation. Alex Spiro, the lead defense lawyer, asked technician Marissa Poppell about a “Good Samaritan” who recently came forward with rounds that he claimed matched the fatal bullet. 

Shortly after armer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's trial in March, the man, former police officer Troy Teske, handed in the bullets to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office.

According to Spiro, Teske told investigators they were "duped" by Kenney. He claimed that this crucial information had not been provided to the defense by the investigators.

“You buried it,” Spiro told the technician.

Poppell said that she had documented the disclosure and that it was not her job to provide discovery to the defense. On redirect, prosecutor Kari Morrissey countered that the bullets were not a match for the fatal round.

Jason Bowles, Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyer, stated via email that the bullets do match and do provide evidence of a connection between Kenney and the live shots.

“This is what I had been trying to tell the state, screaming it for years now,” Bowles said. “Shocking these weren’t tested nor even submitted into ‘Rust’ case evidence.”

Spiro insinuated that Poppell and other investigators had waited too long — more than a month — to search Kenney’s business, and had then conducted a relatively cursory search.

“Isn’t the truth that you were just trying to get this over with, so prosecutors could focus on Alec Baldwin?” Spiro asked.

“No,” Poppell replied.

Bowles also criticized investigators for a half-hearted investigation into the source of the bullets during the Gutierrez-Reed trial. The prosecution argued in that case that Gutierrez-Reed brought the live rounds to set.

During the cross-examination, Spiro also showed jurors a photo of Hutchins’ copy of the film’s script, which was found on the floor of the church where she was shot.

One line from the script — “Rust’s Colt COCKED quietly now” — indicated that Baldwin’s character was supposed to cock his gun during the scene they were filming. A shot list also included “Macro on hammer as thumb cocks it.”

The prosecution argued in its opening statement that Baldwin went “off script” during the fatal incident. Spiro appeared to be making the point that Baldwin was cocking the hammer as the script required.