Jurors on Thursday heard testimony from a crime scene technician who alleged live bullets were found in several places on the Rust set, including inside a prop holster carried by actor Jensen Ackles.
As Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial continues in Santa Fe, N.M., technician Marissa Poppell said the live bullets inside the gun carried by Baldwin were not the only ones present on the western movie set.
Baldwin, 66, is on trial over the October 2021 on-set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed by a bullet fired from Baldwin’s gun as he rehearsed in front of a camera. The shot discharged from the Colt .45 also injured Rust writer and director Joel Souza.
Poppell said live ammunition was discovered inside Baldwin’s gun, on a prop cart, in a box of ammo and in two separate bandoliers, one of which was worn by Ackles, 46. The second bandolier was worn by Baldwin.
The crime scene technician said she had no reason to believe Ackles knew the bullets in his costume bandolier were legitimate. He had, however, been carrying them in the holster while acting on set.
Baldwin’s defence lawyer Alex Spiro grilled Poppell over search warrants served on both a prop truck a week after the death of Hutchins and a prop warehouse more than a month after the shooting.
The questions eventually led to Spiro asking Poppell whether police and prosecutors “were just trying to get this over with so that prosecutors could focus on Alec Baldwin?”
Poppell said that was not the case.
Poppell said there was evidence Hannah Gutierrez-Reed — the film’s armourer who has already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting — brought the live ammunition to set, which she said was given to her by her father.
Ackles, who is best known for his roles in Supernatural and The Boys, is no longer a Rust cast member. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ackles left the production in 2023 due to scheduling conflicts. He was replaced by actor Josh Hopkins.
Ackles was, however, on set the day Hutchins was fatally shot. During a 2022 interview with USA Today, Ackles called the incident “a horrible, horrible accident.”
“You can chalk it up to negligence or try to point a finger at anybody,” he said. “At the end of the day, it was a horrible, horrible accident that ended with a life. Unfortunately, those do happen all the time around the world everywhere. You don’t normally witness them like I did, and it’s certainly shocking and jarring. It makes you value life even more than you had.”
Ackles said the Rust production had been only a week and a half out from finishing when Hutchins, who was doing “really exceptional” work, was killed.
“She was an incredible talent, and I wish there was some way to get it out there to the masses, but I don’t know that that’s possible,” he said of the film.
— with files from The Associated Press
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