Rust jury shown photos of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ blood-stained shirt and bullet that killed her as armorer stands trial for manslaughter

The jury in the trial of Rust gun guard Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has been shown shocking images of cameraman Halyna Hutchins’ blood-stained shirt and the bullet that killed her on set.

Gutierrez-Reed, 26, has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence in Hutchins’ 2021 death during a rehearsal at a ranch outside Santa Fe.

During the second day of her trial on Friday, prosecutors also produced the bloody shirt that director Joel Souza was wearing when the bullet that killed Hutchins struck him in the shoulder.

The day before, prosecutors tried to portray her as disorganized and unprepared for the job, accusing her of mixing live ammunition with fake rounds and using cocaine the night before the tragic rehearsal.

Meanwhile, the defense says Gutierrez-Reed is not to blame and that he is being smeared and unfairly scapegoated as they place the blame on Baldwin and the film’s producers.

Actor Alec Baldwin, who pointed the gun at Hutchins when it went off, killing her and wounding Souza, is separately fighting an involuntary manslaughter charge. No trial date has been set.

On Friday, the jury was also shown dozens of photos of the inside of Seth Kenney’s shop for his company PDQ Props, which allegedly supplied the ammunition to the Rust set. The court also heard it supplied ammunition for 1888 TV series Kevin Costner.

The photos were an attempt by Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney to show that Kenney stored his ammunition in a haphazard manner. In the alley near the store they showed dozens of used cardboard boxes.

Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney, Jason Bowles, asked Marissa Poppell, a crime scene technician with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, about an image showing a pizza box on the ground.

“Does it look very disorganized,” Bowles asked. Poppel said yes.

Bowles asked, “There’s stuff everywhere, do you agree?” Poppell said, “Yes.”

The footage showed dozens of boxes of white ammunition sitting on shelves in what appeared to be a residential apartment. More rounds were shown in a grab bin on the floor with the lid open.

Kenney has denied broadcasting Gutierrez-Reed live.

In text messages shown to the court, Gutierrez-Reed said she got high to a friend the night before the fatal shooting.

The jury was shown texts she sent to someone else on October 20, 2021, saying: ‘LOL. I don’t need that tonight anyway. Maybe I’ll smoke in the jacuzzi soon. I’m so pooped’.

The messages did not specify what she was smoking.

She later sent another message to the other person saying she was “going down to get high in the back.”

The jury was shown other messages Gutierrez-Reed sent to another contact named “Dadclua” on Nov. 8, 2021, after the shooting.

She wrote, “Hey, I want you to check out my boxes and send me pictures of our boxes of dummies.”

The contact named ‘Dadcula’ replied: ‘I will’ and sent an image of an ammo box.

It appeared that “Dadcula” was Thell Reed, the famed movie gunmaker who is Gutierrez-Reed’s stepfather and mentor, but it wasn’t clear.

In another message, dated December 1, 2020, the same person messaged Gutierrez-Reed and her attorney: “Someone show her a single action gun and how it works. They don’t go off on their own.’

Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney, Jason Bowles, told jurors Thursday that his client had to complete two jobs at Rust while being rushed — and that her requests for more resources went unanswered by her manager.

Prosecutors said they plan to present evidence that Gutierrez-Reed unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the set, where it was expressly prohibited, and to show “how these live rounds slowly spread throughout the set and eventually into several the actors’ costumes ended up’. .’

Jurors viewed police body camera footage of the harrowing, chaotic scene after the shooting, where medical personnel treated an injured and semi-conscious Hutchins and loaded her into an ambulance as a helicopter arrived.

They say the gunsmith missed multiple opportunities to ensure safety, ultimately loading a bullet into the gun that killed Hutchins and twice failing to properly check whether the bullets in the gun were live or dummies.

“We will show you, ladies and gentlemen, that by failing to implement these essential safety checks, the defendant acted negligently and without due care,” prosecutor Jason Lewis told jurors. “And the decisions she made that day ultimately contributed to Ms. Hutchins’ death.”

Lead attorney Jason Bowles responded by pointing to findings from workplace safety regulators about broad problems that extended beyond the gunmaker’s control. He claimed that live bullets arrived on set from an Albuquerque-based supplier of dummy bullets, and that the supplier was never actually investigated.

Gutierrez-Reed, the stepdaughter of famed marksman and gun consultant Thell Reed, was 24 when the shooting occurred.

Bowles tried to shift the blame for safety errors to Gutierrez-Reed, and to Baldwin and his handling of the gun during rehearsal.

“He either had his finger cocked on the trigger and the hammer, or he pulled the trigger pointing it at Ms. Hutchins and Mr. Souza,” Bowles said. “You won’t hear about her being in that church or firing that gun. That was Alec Baldwin.”

Baldwin has said he pulled back the gun’s hammer — not the trigger — and the gun fired.

Gutierrez-Reed faces up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine if convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The evidence tampering charge stems from allegations that she handed a baggie of possible narcotics to another crew member after the shooting to avoid detection.

Her lawyers say the charges are an attempt to smear her character. The bag was thrown away without testing the contents, lawyers said.