Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - That Time Alec Baldwin Killed a Woman - The Alec Baldwin "Rust" Case

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

This is the story of Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer, and her fatal mistake on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie Rust

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He's probably the most well-respected armorer in Hollywood. An armorer is the person who handles all the Pue Pue's on a movie set. So one day, Hannah's dad books a really cool gig, and he brings her along as his assistant. And there, she starts to learn how to handle Pue Pugh's and how to be an armorer herself. So he trains her, and I guess she does pretty well. Because only a year later, she gets hired as head armorer on an indie movie, making her the only female lead armorer in the industry. So she's immediately kicking ass at this and living up to her dad's expectations.

Then Hannah, when she's 24, she finally gets her big break. She gets hired as the head armorer-r-r-r-er on a Western movie, a movie produced by and starring Alec Baldwin. And this is huge for Hannah, and in its time, she is going to show everyone that she's just as good as her dad. So then, bam, Hannah takes this job, and she's expected to supervise all the prop weapons at all times,

and to check each pew-poo before every time it's used. And she's having a great time doing this. She's making friends on set, she's going out and partying with the crew after work. Allegedly, there's sometimes low-key getting high on set. But then, at some point, Hannah starts to get a little sloppy with her work. She's leaving the armorer's card unsupervised.

She's leaving prop weapons just laying around, on set she's just a little too relaxed for how important this job is but then one night after work Hannah goes out drinking with the crew again and they're having a great time she's smoking a little zaza she's doing a little uh Coca-Cola but then the next day she goes to work and production is behind schedule and they go into rehearsal and the assistant director he needs a revolver on set for a scene so he starts yelling at Hannah we need a revolver on the set for a rehearsal so then she runs to get it and this is where

Everything goes wrong. See, this is a movie set. So what is supposed to be in the revolver is what's called a dummy round, which is a round that looks real, but isn't. And at some point, somehow, live bullets make their way onto that set. And into Hannah's arsenal of dummy rounds. And she, unknowingly, loads one of those bullets into that pew-pue. So anyway, she runs to get the revolver, which she keeps locked in a safe in the prop truck.

So she gets it and she hands it to the assistant director, but she doesn't check it to make sure the rounds in it are actually dummy rounds. And the assistant director also doesn't check it. And he hands it to Alec Baldwin. And Alec Baldwin also doesn't check it. And I don't actually know if he's supposed to. He's actually in the middle of a scene. But then Baldwin starts rehearsing with it.

Now, the cinematographer, she's working the camera. And she starts walking Alec Baldwin through the scene. And her name's Helena. And Helena's like, okay, point that pew-pue right here, right below my armpit. And as Helena is directing Alec Baldwin, where to point. the pew-poo, suddenly bang. The revolver goes off and the whole room freezes and Helena falls to the ground. She's been shot. And Alec Baldwin, he's confused. He's like, did she faint? Did she have a heart attack? What's going on? And that is when the rest of the crew sees Helena and the director of the

movie, Joel, lying on the ground. The single bullet had passed through the right side of Helena's chest and into Joel's shoulder. So they're both shot and they're both injured. But Helena is unresponsive. So someone calls 911 and quickly police show up. And a helicopter comes and they airlift Helena to a nearby hospital and an ambulance comes and takes Joel away and Joel ends up being fine. But then police, they bring Alec Baldwin in to question him. And that is where they break the bad news to him about Helena. I do have some very unfortunate news to tell you. She didn't make it. Then, of course, police question Hannah because she's the armorer. And as you can imagine, Hannah is all torn up when she's talking to the cop.

I'm like the only female armor in the game and I just f***ed up my one-time career. Have you studied armory or did you go to classes or how did you get into it? My dad's the best one of the best armors in the entire world and trained me and I'm a fucking failure. So this story is obviously tragic and sad and it really captures the public's attention. And it blows up. It's all over the news. And Alec Baldwin, since he's the one who shot Helena, he's got to go and do damage control. And so he goes on ABC and does a big interview.

And of course, he's all torn up about it too. But he swears he didn't pull the trigger. Well, the trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger. So you never pulled the trigger. No, no, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them, never. But he does admit to pulling back the hammer,

which is allegedly how the gun actually went off. But that whole part is still in dispute. Then a year later, after a long investigation, the local sheriff's department releases a 500-page report about the whole incident. And right after that, suddenly, bam, Hannah is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Here's her mugshot. So Hannah goes to trial, and because she screwed up so bad, they find her guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and she's sentenced to 18 months in prison. While Alec Baldwin, he's

also charged with involuntary manslaughter, and he pleads not guilty, and he's waiting on his trial. Okay, so I actually have an update on this. Baldwin's trial actually ended after I filmed this video. So listen to this. Apparently, some more actual live ammo rounds were eventually found on set, and the prosecuting attorney didn't file them into evidence properly, making it seem as if the prosecuting attorney was trying to withhold this evidence from the court. Now, the existence of these other live rounds, in theory, would have helped Baldwin's case and potentially affected the outcome of the trial. Once the judge found out that the prosecuting attorney was allegedly withholding evidence, She straight up dismissed the entire case against Alec Baldwin with prejudice, which means it can never be retried again.

I guess judges do not fuck around when it comes to withholding evidence. And no one is more emotional about this than Alec Baldwin himself. Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted. And because he is now completely off the hook and because of this new evidence, Hannah's attorneys are trying to get her. case dismissed too and if that happens then they'll have to let her out of prison that is a wild turn of events