Rust ammunition supplier defends himself against accusation that he brought live ammo to set

Rust ammunition supplier Seth Kenney took the stand today in the involuntary manslaughter trial of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed today, as the mystery of where the live round that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza came from only deepens. “I started to sense that there were efforts to redistribute blame or the cause of this accident,” Kenney testified when he took the stand (via Deadline), suggesting that he was put on the spot by Gutierrez-Reed’s father, veteran armorer Thell Reed, a man whom he had considered a friend “for a few years at that point.” Reed and his daughter’s attorneys “essentially ultimately try to blame the live ammunition on the set of Rust …somehow came through me,” he continued.

While it was initially suspected that Kenney was responsible for the presence of live ammo on set, a previous probe by the Santa Fe sheriff’s department found that the bullets in the supplier’s shop did not match the ones found on the Rust set. Testimony from today also confirmed that Kenney was rarely present on set in the first place.

Kenney did purchase the brand new Colt .45 gun (specifically made for Rust) that Alec Baldwin was holding when it discharged and killed Hutchins, but he testified that he only provided a “single box” of 50 Colt .45 dummy rounds that came directly from the set of Taylor Sheridan’s 1883, which he also worked on. However, the supplier could not provide definitive dates for when he traveled back and forth between the 1883 and Rust sets, an omission which left defense lawyer Jason Bowles “more than a little incredulous,” Deadline reports.

Kenney also discussed his relationship with Gutierrez-Reed. In a call transcript read out in court, the supplier apparently said, “shit, shit, shit, well she still didn’t do her fucking job,” on a call with the Santa Fe sheriff’s department shortly after Hutchins’ death. Still, he denied the defense’s assumption that he was trying to blame the young armorer for the incident at the time while on the stand.

He also addressed the “expletive-filled” last text conversation the two had before the shooting occurred on October 21, 2021, which he said was “related to an accidental discharge of a blank on the set of Rust.” He also called Gutierrez-Reed “emotional” and said he felt she owed him an apology. Later, he read out a separate conversation in which Gutierrez-Reed wrote, “You just send me out to do these things and don’t teach me / Shame on both of you,” and reiterated that he never actually wanted her to be fired. “She was doing a horrible job at props… I had mixed feelings about it,” he said, describing the “mixed bag of emotions” he felt about working with the inexperienced daughter of his friend. “If I really wanted her fired, I could have gotten her fired,” he added.

If found guilty, Gutierrez-Reed could go to state prison for up to three years on charges of involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering.