'Rust' Armorer Allegedly Smoked Marijuana The Night Before Halyna Hutchins' Death

“Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed faced her second day in court on Friday.

The rookie armorer is being charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Halyna Hutchins, although it was actor Alec Baldwin who had been the one holding the gun when it went off.

Gutierrez-Reed was also charged with tampering with evidence after prosecutors claimed that a witness told them that the armorer gave them a bag of cocaine shortly before being interviewed by police on the day of the investigation.

Although her legal team vehemently tried to get the allegations of her drug use dismissed from the trial, the prosecutors opened the second day of the trial with text messages that alleged that she might have been impaired on the night before Hutchins was killed.

On Friday, prosecutors presented the jury with text messages from Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's cell phone that indicated that she might have been smoking marijuana the night before "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on set. This was only the first piece of evidence in the prosecutor's argument that the armorer's "sloppiness" and unprofessionalism on set led to the death of the mother-of-one.

On October 20, 2021, on the night before the fatal shooting, the jury was presented with a text message from Gutierrez-Reed to a crew member that read, "Right on, I might go smoke in the jacuzzi soon, but maybe not I’m so pooped,” as per Variety. In another message, she added, "Headed down to get high out back:b."

Later on in the night, a crew member asked, "How'd the blaze sess go." To that message, Gutierrez-Reed replied, "I'm still smoking."

Due to the frequent attempts by her legal team to get the drug charges dismissed, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer told the prosecution to limit the number of text messages that referenced drug use in order to keep the trial focused on the death of Halyna Hutchins and the fatal shooting. However, the prosecution is still using her alleged drug use to remind the jury that Gutierrez-Reed was smoking marijuana while she was in possession of ammunition that was supposed to be used on set.

Although the prop gun that actor Alec Baldwin was only supposed to contain dummy rounds, live ammunition somehow not only made it onto the set but into the gun that Baldwin was rehearsing for the scene. It should be noted that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was not present inside the church when the shooting took place and did not hand Baldwin the firearm. In total, law enforcement officials found six live rounds on the set, 250 dummy rounds, and nearly a thousand blanks.

The jury was shown dozens of photos of ammunition that was found on set over the course of both Thursday and Friday. There were many different types of dummy rounds shown, including some that pictured holes in the sides while others would rattle when shaken. Although some rounds were inside of the boxes, others were found loosely sitting on top of a prop cart.

Marissa Poppell, an evidence technician for the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, told the jury that there "were multiple rounds of multiple calibers all over the top portion of this cart." The photos shown are familiar to some, as they were released by the Sheriff's Office in 2022 due to an open records request.

Although prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for bringing the live ammunition to the set and failing to identify the dummy rounds from the live ones, her legal team put the blame on Seth Kenney, who provided the set with ammunition and weapons. Her lawyer, Jason Bowles, showed photographs of Kenney’s business, PDQ Props in Albuquerque, which included large stacks of boxes of ammunition pushed up against one wall.

Other photographs showed boxes and miscellaneous items strewn about the floor, arguing that the disorganization of the business may have led to live ammunition being mixed into the live rounds. Although the prosecution argued that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed brought the live ammunition to set, the defense team blamed Seth Kenney and argued that the live ammunition was never fingerprinted to see who had touched it.