New details have been revealed about the source of live rounds by Rust investigators.
According to a search warrant approved on Tuesday, November 30th, the deadly live round fired by Alec Baldwin that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 32, and injured director Joel Souza, 48, may have been left in the firearm from a previous film production.
New Mexico investigators provided the update about the Rust shooting as they asked for permission to search PDQ Arm & Prop, LLC, an Albuquerque ammunition store that supplied the film with props, as per Variety. The warrant further revealed that the weapon may have been supplied by a man identified as “Billy Ray.”
The shooting incident took place on October 21st and criminal charges haven’t been ruled out ever since. The following week, investigators searched the film’s prop truck after discovering there was “additional ammunition collected of which some are suspect live ammunition.”
The truck was unlocked by PDQ Arm & Prop’s Seth Kenney, the warrant notes. He informed the investigators that the “dummy rounds and blanks” were provided for the film by the manufacturer Starline Brass, with Kenney insisting that they only sold bullet components and not live rounds.
When they noticed that the deadly live round had the Starline Brass logo on it, Kenney then told police that could have been because “he received ‘reloaded ammunition’ from a friend”, which means real ammo made from the harmless components.
Thell Reed, father of Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, confirmed Kenney’s alleged fondness for live rounds. Reed told investigators that he previously worked on a different film with Kenney earlier this year.
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“Seth (Kenney) requested he bring live ammunition in the event they ran out of what was supplied,” Reed explained to investigators. “He said he still had the can with the .45 caliber colt ammunition in it, and after several attempts to get it back from Seth, Seth advised Thell to ‘write it off,'” investigators added. “Thell stated this ammunition might match the ammunition found on the set of Rust.”
Gutierrez-Reed and prop master Sarah Zachry explained to investigators that they put five dummy rounds in the long barrel Colt .45 before lunch on the day of the shooting – when one round wouldn’t go in, Gutierrez-Reed cleaned it out and put another round in after lunch.
After the shooting, Zachry said she returned to the prop cart to compare the suspected live round with other ammo, the document stated. “Sarah (Zachry) said when she was comparing to other cartridges in the box, she found some of the cartridges would rattle, which signified them being ‘dummy rounds,’ however, others did not rattle,” investigators noted. “Sarah said this lead (sic) her to believe some of the other rounds in that box were live ammo.”
Zachry told investigators that several people could be at fault for the inclusion of the live ammo. “Sarah advised the ammunition for Rust was provided from various sources, to include Seth Kenney, some Hannah brought from a previous production, and extra rounds from an individual identified as ‘Billy Ray,'” sheriff’s said.
Investigators have been granted permission to search PDQ Arm & Prop. This is a continuing story.
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