Jurors will learn that Alec Baldwin urged his wife and kids to visit him in Santa Fe for a "good time," hours after he accidentally shot Halyna Hutchins and Joel Souza on a movie set, according to a ruling Thursday.
Baldwin, 66, hadn’t yet learned that Hutchins was dead but knew that she and Souza had been taken to a hospital when he called his wife, Hilaria, from a New Mexico sheriff’s office Oct. 21, 2021.
"He’s speaking to his wife, and he has her on FaceTime so we can actually hear her. We can hear her responses. And then he’s speaking to another person," prosecutor Kari Morrissey told the judge during a hearing outside the earshot of jurors.
"And he is explaining that he wants that person to try to convince his wife to still come to New Mexico because they can’t get their money back for the plane tickets, and they’d like to go ahead and have a good time."
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Hilaria and their kids had previously planned to visit Baldwin one day after the tragic accident.
But rather than call off their trip after the shooting, Baldwin urged them to visit.
Morrissey argued the statement should be allowed after defense attorney Alex Spiro elicited testimony about Baldwin’s state of mind from Santa Fe Sheriff’s Deputy Nicholas Lefleur.
Spiro had asked whether Baldwin appeared upset after the accidental shooting, which the deputy confirmed.
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Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled prosecutors could introduce his conversations with Hilaria, which were captured on video hours after the accident as Baldwin sat alone in a police interview room.
Later that evening, Baldwin told Det. Alexandria Hancock, "You live a very, very difficult but ultimately very narrow life."
Sommer said that statement can also be disclosed to jurors.
The third day of Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial in the First Judicial District Court kicked off with cross-examination of the state’s fourth witness, forensic technician Marissa Poppell.
During the brutal hours-long questioning by Spiro, Poppell admitted she didn’t conduct an exhaustive search for live ammunition at a warehouse for the film’s prop supplier after having stated the opposite on direct examination.
The defense has argued investigators zeroed in on Baldwin rather than focus on who supplied the live rounds to the set, which remains a mystery.
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Spiro showed jurors photos of stacked boxes and tubs in Seth Kenney’s PDQ Arm and Prop’s warehouse, where Poppell and other officers unsuccessfully searched for live rounds that matched the one that killed Hutchins.
Poppell admitted they didn’t go through every box but instead shook some of them and listened for a rattle.
"At the search being conducted to find the source of the lethal round, law enforcement is doing the very same thing that you’re complaining about the armorer doing on the set, right?" Spiro asked.
"Yes," she replied.
The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was convicted of the same charge Baldwin is facing for loading a live round into the revolver that killed Hutchins, previously told investigators she checked to confirm a bullet was a dummy "most of the time."
