Ever since Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, one of the biggest questions was why live ammunition was on the film's New Mexico set.
Now, more than a month after the incident, investigators have a theory, and it involves both the movie's armorer — and her father.
In the immediate aftermath of Hutchins being fatally shot on Oct. 21, investigators recovered about 500 rounds of ammunition from the “Rust” set. The ammunition gathered as evidence included an unspecified number of live rounds — a violation of Hollywood safety standards.
Authorities now believe some of those slugs may have come from Seth Kenny, a weapons dealer who supplied firearms and bullets to the movie. In an affidavit released Tuesday, Kenny, whose gun shop is called PDQ Arm & Prop, told investigators someone gave him “reloaded ammunition” from a different movie.
It now appears that someone was Thell Reed, the father of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on “Rust.” The elder Reed — a veteran armorer — told authorities the “reloaded” ammunition may match live rounds found on the set.
Authorities say they now want to search PDQ Arm & Prop.
One other potentially telling detail on the documents released Tuesday: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed said she had a hard time loading one of the rounds in the gun. Live rounds and dummy rounds are different sizes.
From the affidavit:
Affiant asked Hannah when the last time she loaded the gun was, and she advised she loaded the gun with 5 dummy rounds before lunch. Hannah stated there was one round that wouldn't go in so after lunch she took the cleaner, cleaned "it” out, and put another round in, which brought the total to six rounds loaded in the weapon. Hannah described the gun to be a long barrel Colt, 45 caliber.
