The husband of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has taken a crucial first step toward filing a wrongful death lawsuit after Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed Hutchins on the New Mexico set of his Western movie Rust last October.
In a petition filed Wednesday in Santa Fe, lawyer Kristina Martinez asked to be appointed the personal representative of Hutchins’ estate “solely for the purpose of investigating a lawsuit under the New Mexico Wrongful Death Act,” according to the filing obtained by Rolling Stone.
Martinez said Hutchins’ husband Matthew Hutchins and the couple’s minor son, Aldous Hutchins, “support this petition.” The widower previously retained Los Angeles-based lawyer Brian Panish to represent his interests in the matter.
Hutchins died Oct. 21, 2021, after she was accidentally shot by Baldwin while setting up a scene in a rustic wooden church at the Bonanza Creek Ranch.
In an interview with told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last month, Baldwin claimed he didn’t pull the trigger on the Colt .45 before it fired. Instead, he described pulling the hammer back at Hutchins’ direction and letting it go before it was fully cocked. Either way, Baldwin said he was informed the firearm was “cold,” meaning it wasn’t loaded with any live or blank rounds, only dummy bullets.
The production’s young armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has filed her own lawsuit against the prop company that allegedly supplied dummy bullets to the set. She alleges some of the rounds were live. The prop company owner has denied any wrongdoing.