Since the sad and surprise death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust, actor Alec Baldwin has maintained that he never pulled the trigger of the gun that killed his colleague.
Last October, Halyna, 42, tragically lost her life after being hit by a live bullet while filming the western in New Mexico. Joel Souza, the film’s director, was also injured in the incident after being hit in the shoulder and was taken to hospital at the time before being released.
In a recent update on the case, Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies agreed that Alec may not have pulled the trigger of the gun that administered the bullet.
The prosecutor told Vanity Fair magazine that she has been looking into the actor’s claim and launched an unofficial investigation to test the 63-year-old actor’s theory that he had only removed the firing pin from the gun before it went off.
“You can pull the hammer back without pulling the trigger and without locking it up,” Carmack-Altwies shared. “So you pull it back partially, it doesn’t lock, and then if you let go, the firing pin can hit the primer on the bullet.”
“I didn’t know much about guns, certainly not revolvers from the 1850s. So when I first heard that, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s crazy,'” the prosecutor added.
Mary explained that she asked one of her research team members to bring an old revolver to her office for testing, wanting to see if a mechanical malfunction could have caused the gun to fire.
Two investigators checked the gun to confirm that it was not loaded. The test revealed that the firing pin could have caused the shot. The official results of an analysis of the weapon by the FBI are still pending.
Last December, Baldwin spoke to ABC News and claimed that he did not pull the trigger on the gun that killed Halyna. During that interview, the actor said that the tragedy occurred while he was setting up the scene with Halyna and rehearsing her actions.
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