Alec Baldwin 'Rust' Shooting With Aphrodite Jones: Part I

TV producer, true crime legend. She's hosted her own show, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones. She has covered trials high profile like Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson, BTK, Dennis Raider, and Honey when she's not writing movie scripts and doing fabulous parties and crime con and different things. Always stunning for Lawless. I've never seen her look even half, not completely put together.

here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna let you tell us where we're gonna start, and I'm gonna follow you.

I'm gonna let you drive this train. Because there's so many lawsuits and people. Everybody's sueing everybody, and some people get in charge, some people not getting charge, some people making deals. You almost need to flow charte. So you just you just take it away, all right.

who carries a gun in general. Okay. He told me that the other time there was ever a real live AMMA on any set was when he not on set. But even within the scope of where krinbya set was where he had a separate building, where he had a completely separate situation where he kept his own guns. It wasn't a part of the set. It wasn't part of what the props were going to be with them, So that was that's what I've heard around the block. Now come to this case and let's talk about how these

bullets got onto that set. We have never had anybody shot on a set before because there's never been live ammo. We had two deaths based on Black's being pulled okay, which have a violent discharge of their own and can cause harm and did in two cases. But I mean, what were you thinking as a cop how this happened or why this happened?

did cross my mind when I first heard it. I was like, how is this possible? There's no way, there's no possible way that anybody took a live round to a movie set. The next thing I thought about is in my job. My police department is right next to the airport in Atlanta, as you know, has become like Hollywood of the South. They're making movies all over Atlanta.

Now we have actually had prop people come into my police department where they call me as the evidence person and the crime scene investigator because they want to self confiscate weapons. They want to just give them to us because they don't want to get on an airplane with them and they don't need them any longer. But even that shocked me that these weapons are real. I thought everything was like three D or plastic or made to look I had no idea. I had no idea for.

in puri you know, down to the chewing gum, down to the bowls that they eat out of in a seventies set, you know, you get that old pirate stuff coming up. They're very, very particular about keeping things as

real as possible. Now when it comes to weapons, they do use real weapons on sets, but they are only filled with dummies and occasionally with blanks when they have to actually do the scene rather than rehearse it, so that there's some smoke that comes out of the gun, but in no circumstance ken that kills someone on There were two instances I had referred to. One was a young man who took the gun to his head in a Russian roulette scene and it had a blank in it.

He didn't know that and it killed him. And the other was Bruce Lee's son who also was killed in a freakish way by a blank. That's it in the whole history of Hollywood filmmaking. So again, not live bullets. Yes, real gun, but not live bullets. So how did this bullet get there? And I have a story that I want to tell about that that I learned in watching the Alec Baldwin trial. How familiar are you with Belle Reid.

by the name of Troy Teskey. I don't knows you've heard that name in the trial, But Troy Tesky and Phil Reid were down in Texas working on the set of eighteen eighty three. You know what I'm talking about, the prequel to Yellow Sculling. Yep, right, So that's a big Western it's back in time, it's eighteen eighty three. There's lots of guns, lots of action with guns. And what they decided to do the filmmakers wanted to get certain people of the cast together and have them learn

about real guns and shoot real guns and shoot real bullets and take lessons in it so that they could quote bond with each other, but also so that they would have know what it's like, so that when they go to act the scene they know how to perhaps react to the gun or you know, what the violence of it is. So that's where the bullets were. The bullets were, at least from what I can detern here

piece together. The man Troit Teskey has said publicly that about the fact that they built this, they went to a separate area of the of the property and created a you know, a shooting race that was entirely safe with the with the backstop and everything needed to be. And there were a few cast members there and they did the practice round shooting real ammunition. They had the lessons, they did what they did, and when it was over, the Tesky, this man holds film reads ammunition for him

at his warehouse in Albuquerque. So that's been the way they've done things. Like you say, Atlanta is the Hollywood of the South, well, Texas in that area, you know, Montana, Arizona kind of the the what the Hollywood of the Midwest, Okay, And so he's got his ammo there with his buddy for many years now that and munition gets driven to Albuquerque, and then somehow another the person who goes to get the ammunition who has driven it is somebody evolved in

the set of Rust. Okay, obviously how did he get there? So there's another character in this story whose name is Seth Kenny, and Seth Kenny is the person who went to retrieve the ammunition. He actually had his assistant go and get it, and she was on the phone with her directing her what to do. And he got that ammunition. She brought it to him and his prop warehouse, and he never really checked it, and he says he did.

He testifies that he did, but obviously he did not because live bullets wound up on the set of Rust. Why am I saying this? Why it's important is that first of all, no one could have figured out how that happened. And it's only recently that we did tre this out when it was Baldwin's trial was on in the first few days. This person, Troy Tesky, is the one who brought a bag of ammunition to Hanniguichier's Read's trial. He believed he was going to be called as a witness.

He brought a bag of ammunition that matched the bullets that were found at the scene and the bullet that killed Helena. Hutchins that that bullet the man the bullet and other six other bullets al tonal six bullets on set matched these bullets precisely. So he was shocked because he had come to the prosecutor, the special prosecutor Morrisey, and said, look, I have bullets. They match. I'm going to bring them in. I want you to test them, and she ignored them for a year, didn't want anything

to do with it. So when he gets to the trial, he realizes he's not going to be called as a witnesses, that the preliminary is not going to be called. They don't hear about him. He now watches the trial. He's

got the bullets in his storage, in his car or wherever, and he walks into the Santa Fe Police department and hands over it says, I have evidence I want to give to you here. It is just like people here you guns. This guy handed over a bag of bullets and we heard testimony and this is where the trial went. Arrived for Alec Baldwin from the CSI officer who accepted

those bullets. Yep, I saw that video, okay, And that's where this thing fell apart with Alec Baldwin, because now you have this woman testifying that, yes, I was handed bullets and what did you do with the bullets? Well, I filed them. I put a document and I documented there. What do you mean documented? And it turns out we discover she was told by somebody higher up to document this and file it under a separate case, not under

the rust case. Right. So now come to find out when the when the offense attorneys hear this, they realized she's hiding others. This is something should have been tested. Certainly, the defense needed to test it. This could have explained and would explained most likely how the bullets got on set, because one of the things that the prosecutor was alleging in the in the gutieris Read case was that she

brought those bullets onto the set. Not just that she was negligent in the way that things were handled, but that she brought them on the set. Well, it looks to me like Seth Kenny is the one who was negligent there in terms of those bullets getting to the set. And if if you might recall or might've seen in commentary Seth Kenny was helping the law enforcement when they were looking at things, trying to explain to them what prop guns were like, what prop bullets were like, but

dummies were like. He had so much involvement there which he had no business and involvement that it was like he protests too much, if you understand I'm saying, I believe, truly believed that he was busy trying to point fingers at anyone he could, this prop master, Jeff Kenny, in order that he wasn't the one who brought the bullets there or got the bullets there. I think I think it's been proven, at least to my satisfaction, that this

is how they got there. They got there through sept Kenny's negligence and not testing those bullets, by having those bullets come from a set from Texas which belonged to THELL Reid. It's ironic that those were fell Reads bullets, right, because it's his daughter who winds up in prison because of those bullets. And I think the reason that Karen Lawressey didn't want to analyze or tall or have anything to do with the bullets is because She knew that Troy Tesky was a friend of thell Read's, so she

probably thought this could be a setup. Again, this is me just you know, coming up with my own theories here.

appointed as a special prosecutor. Here, she's going to be on TV. It's going to be her O. J. Simpson moment, you know, I mean, the whole world is watching. This has never happened in the universe before. Here's an a list actor Alec Bull, who knew mean you say his name, there's no question he's in a lister. And he's also somebody known for problems with you know, violence, and you know, for that crazy voicemail he left for his daughter calling

her page and all this other stuff. I mean, I'm not saying that he was beating people up, but he's certainly gone after some paparazzi. In essence, though, what I want to say is this, she called Alec Baldwin an arrogant ahole. Okay, we found that out. We also found out she called them other curse words. She hated her, and she wanted to get him. And as soon as it turned out that the FBI was able to establish that the gun that was used on set had to have a trigger pulled in order to fire, she went

back after Alec Baldwin. Now because you know, I had been dropped. And then you know, he was cleared or so called, and then later on he was indicted again by this special prosecutor. So you know, I want to ask you something. Did you ever think that Alec Baldwin did not pull the trigger?

somebody get a police academy. That statement came out of their mouth. Don't ever point it at another person. And my dad even told us there's no such thing as an unloaded gun. You don't ever act like it's unloaded. You don't treat it like it's unloaded. It's always loaded. So with that said, he should have never pointed that weapon at Miss Hutchins.

stam because I know Hollywood Land pretty well. I've had three books mating two movies and etc. When the a star gets a producer credit on a film then not

really producing the film. They're just getting extra money and having the name on as a producer. They're not literally producing. Producers are in back rooms and you know, in sound rooms and rooms with equipment. They're putting stuff together. They're putting budgets together and all of that prior to the you know, prior to the set rolling and all of that. They're not He was not We know in Hollywood that

you're not actually producing. But he still had the title of producer, So technically I don't care if he's notelf producing. He is listed as a producer on that on that film as well as the Store, and in the role of producer very different than an actor handling a gun. And I'll tell you why because producers are responsible for the budget. And this goes directly to Alec Baldswin, even though he's not a producer, so called Alec than was

making a vanity film. This is all about. He's sixty six or sixty four years old and he wants to, you know, be the cowboy again. He wants to be in the scene. He wants to be the star. And this is going to be great. But it's going to be a five million dollar film and it's going to be done on a shoe string. And he who do you think was going to collect the most money out of that whole budget? Alec Bawl, He dos that you that?

of your books being made to movies and working with different actors and producers. The one thing that stood out to me when when everything was really coming out is the first assistant director. Now again I don't know much about Hollywood. I know a director says action cut tape, whatever. What does the first assistant director do? And the reason I'm asking is we were told that David Halls is one that handed him the gun and first hollered out cold gun, which means no live, Amma.

all circumstances. So this those two again the sloppiness of the set, and what I was getting at was that the there was a there was a fast, quick and dirty sense of this is going to get done in this film, and it didn't matter rules, regulations, didn't matter about safety. And I say this because there was a situation on the set of Rest where the crew was being mistreated and they felt that this that that the UH set was unsafe, that the safe circumstances was unsafe.

Why do I say this, First of all, somebody who wrote a text saying that two guns had gone off to the two guns had gone off prop guns at some point and they have felt that things were unsafe. This is not on set. It's in and around the set, okay, behind the scenes. That text is there, that email is there. We saw it early on before the trial started. There's another issue here. The crew, a Union crew on this

set were from Albuquerque. Now Santa Fe is about fifty miles from Albuquerque, I know it well, well know both cities well. They were originally contracted to do twelve to thirteen hour days and be housed in a hotel in Santa Fe. However, when the films actually started rolling, that crew were told, oh no, we're not putting you up in a hotel. You got to drive back and forth from Albuquerque. And it turned out one crew member was sleeping in his car. Because if you work a twelve

hour day, think of it. You're working from six in the morning till six at night, maybe seven. Now you go to drive fifty two miles I was home, and then turn around at five o'clock in the morning the next day and drive fifty two miles back. It's completely unsafe if you're doing this for weeks on end. And the crew was demanding, not only making complaints about unsafe things going on on the set, but also saying, we can't do this anymore. This isn't what we've bargained for,

this isn't right. We're not being treated right. So then you walked off to the set Cheryl that morning October twenty first, okay, twenty twenty one, then walked off the set because of the unsafe practices.

and that sort of thing. The same for children, I've heard all this stuff. They've got to still go to school, they've got to do these things. You can't overwork them. They are allowed to have a parent there whatever. And as far as like even a dog handler, I thought they had to be right there with the animal, Well they do, okay, but there's not somebody there with a freaking gun.

that footage. Did you watch part of that trial as it was going off, yes, right, and it looks you know, he's mister cowboy, mister tea, mister macho, but with an actual gun in his hand. And like you said, as an officer of the walk, you do not to the fence. I mean, if it's not plastic, you better know if be playing with it.

at anybody. And again, no such thing as at beging unloaded. So to me, you know, you hear about how Guitaris Gutiras and you think, okay, well she is gonna file a lawsuit herself against the AMMO people.

took responsibility for what happened in any way. In other words, there was no Yeah, they were sorry and they were shaken. But you know, I don't know if you've noticed, but Alec Baldwin, he was on the phone. You see that iconic picture of him hunched over in the desert there, you know, And we find out he's talking to his wife. His concern while Helena Hutchins is in the hospital, she was brought, she was helicoptered out, she died in the hospital,

she was still alive. His concern is Wayne's family. Now it's throwing plans for his family to come out and see him, and next thing you know, he's planning a vacation and lands somewhere I don't know, Maine, New Hampshire, wrever the hell he went to run away from it all. He had no concern about her. Now to me, that is the most horrifying thing about all of this. Yes,

it was an accident. Clearly it was an accident. I mean, nobody ever thought there was going to be a real bullet in any gun on any set, because there never has been one. But still he pulled the trigger, and you know, his commentary is that actually the cinematographer was asking him to point the trigger at her. Now, there's other people who testified to this. So this cinematographer is young. She was new ish. I mean she was, you know, getting her career built up. Her husband was there on

set as well. She apparently wandered a particular scene where you're looking down the barrel of the gun, and that's why she had Baldwin pointing the gun at her, which her face is next to the camera. I don't get it. I mean, that sounds crazy to me that she would direct him that way. But you know, there's no calling for what art says. You know, people in the arts don't understand the law. They don't understand bullets and guns necessarily, right. So she clearly didn't get that.

twenty four years old. She had only worked on one movie prior to Russ And it turns out that on the set she was working on a Nicholas Cage movie, also in the Midwest, and it was called The Old Way, she apparently fired off a gun with a blank near him, and Nicholas Cage went nuts because she's he said, she blew his ears out because you know the fired Why why do we wear those those ear sets in gun range? Its sure, because the sound of it can blow your ear jones out.

trial or in Guteers's trial. However, when you hear things like that, you really start to wonder, like, how much of a old Wild West was this for these people on this set? You know, Let's have a good time, is what I'm thinking. And then there's a lot of drinking that was going on. I want to get to that. So so, but let me go back to the fact that this young woman good Cheers read was not only

not only was she inexperienced all right. Not only did she only work on one movie set where she pulled a trigger out of a blank and practically blew Nicholas Cage's ear drums out, but also she had a habit of kind of posing with guns and being very on the fly with guns. She went into one of the restaurants in New Mexico with a gun on her that she had was illegal. The prosecutor started to charge her with that because she wasn't helping in any way to

try to, you know, expedite situation or she was. And here's the thing, this is what gets me, Cheryl. She was drinking all throughout that filming all lots. And not only was she drinking, she was smoking. And she has a text the night before, uh the killing, where she's saying, I don't need that stuff anyway, I'll just be smoking. I'm smoking tonight. Now there's there are many people who have corroborated the fact that she smoked pot, but not

only that. On the day after the killing, on the twenty first of October, Okay, twenty twenty one, Hannah gutirs Read has an acquaintance who comes over. People are staying with her because she's scared, because she's freaked out, because she's freaked out because somebody got hurt killed, and she has people staying with her. But they need to go out and get some cigarettes or whatever they need to do it. And so they call over another member of

the crew who is the craft services person. And this person tested by a Gutierris's trial and her last name is Smith. I can't. The first name doesn't come to me now, but Miss Smith testified, No, I was some friends with her, but I was an acquaintance and they asked me to come over, you know. In the same they're saying it an inn in Santa Fe to just sit with her and be with her, you know, while they went Ransomarrand so while she's there, Hannah gutierists read says,

can you hold something for me? Sure? What is it? She hands to Miss Smith to the Craft Services person a baggie with another baggy inside the baggy, and in that smaller baggie is a white powder substance. And it just so happens that this Craft Services crew member is a recovering addict who hasn't touched anything like that in decades.

But she agreed to hold it because here's this young woman falling apart at the scene is that she's clearly she's drinking, she's who knows what, And she takes a strawholder for you, and she propably goes and throws it in the garbage can when she leaves because she can't have it around her. This the Craft Services one because it's temptation and Hannah Guziers later comes after her and says, where's my stuff? There's text with it. I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

white powder. The no one could test it. It was thrown away. But the woman who testified, the food services woman did say whether when the prosecutor asked her, let's say it was a packet of sugar, because he wanted to know what the amount of it was right by, her answer was, oh, no, it wasn't sugar. I know

it wasn't sugar. I know what cocaine looks like. And then it turns out when he described how much was in there, She said, would have been like five or six packets sugar, like it wasn't a little bit