Rust and Related Lawsuits

[RVInit]

Morrissey should just shut up and go back to her law office and pray that she is able to get work and pray that there are no efforts to investigate her lack of ethics in this case. This was willful and knowledgeable hiding of evidence that she knew for a fact would help Baldwin in his case. And that is AFTER she had already been caught multiple other times not disclosing evidence.

Turned out Morrissey also held a meeting right before trial with her two gun experts so that she could strong arm one of them into vacating his own opinion on a supplemental report he had written. By the way, that supplemental report was never turned over to the defense. They found out about the meeting and supplemental report because her office (probably accidentally) turned over an email and reding through that thread revealed this meeting. The subject of that supplemental report was all about how the sear on the revolver that killed Hutchins had a defect on the very notch that prevents the hammer from dropping when it is in the fully cocked position. That happens to be exactly the position that the hammer was in when Baldwin says it fired unexpectedly. This was the subject of one of the many hearings that were held regarding suppression of evidence.

Morrissey will be lucky if this just goes away, and the best chance she has of that happening is to shut her damn mouth. slink away to her office, and hope that most people forget her name. Because if anyone looks into her behavior in this trial it isn't going to be just on one issue that most people don't understand the significance of rare Starline brass with nickel primer bullets. They will look into every single instance of her failure to turn over evidence and the obvious browbeating of one of her gun experts. If you think Hancock sounded like a lying liar that lies on the witness stand, just listen to the hearing where Haas (author of the supplemental report) has perfectly good hearing until the defense lawyer starts asking the hard questions. He was hearing her just fine while she threw him a few softballs. Then, she gets to the meat of the meaning of the defect on the sear and why he all the sudden (after a Zoom meeting with Morrissey and the other expert) decided that maybe he didn't really have that opinion contained in the supplemental report after all. When the subject of that meeting comes up he all the sudden from that point on can't hear. They had to stop the hearing and reschedule to finish it because he kept pretending he couldn't hear. That was after 20 minutes of hearing Morrissey just fine and at least 5 minutes of hearing the defense lawyer just fine.

She's a sleazy example of a joke of a lawyer.

[andersweinstein]

Morrissey should just shut up and go back to her law office and pray that she is able to get work and pray that there are no efforts to investigate her lack of ethics in this case. This was willful and knowledgeable hiding of evidence that she knew for a fact would help Baldwin in his case. And that is AFTER she had already been caught multiple other times not disclosing evidence.

Yes, the written order of dismissal pointed out that there were four previous culpable failures to make timely disclosures of evidence, though they were handled with different remedies.

The written order also makes much of the fact that Morrissey elicited false testimony from CST Poppell. That was about the rounds Teske turned in not containing any matches to the live rounds on the set -- the batch in fact contained 3 matches, which had been inventoried by Poppell. It never says Morrissey did this knowingly, but explains prosecutor's obligation to know what was in the evidence.

I do wonder how Morrissey's continued defensiveness is going to play with this judge.

[RVInit]

Morrissey should just shut up and go back to her law office and pray that she is able to get work and pray that there are no efforts to investigate her lack of ethics in this case. This was willful and knowledgeable hiding of evidence that she knew for a fact would help Baldwin in his case. And that is AFTER she had already been caught multiple other times not disclosing evidence.

Yes, the written order of dismissal pointed out that there were four previous culpable failures to make timely disclosures of evidence, though they were handled with different remedies.

The written order also makes much of the fact that Morrissey elicited false testimony from CST Poppell. That was about the rounds Teske turned in not containing any matches to the live rounds on the set -- the batch in fact contained 3 matches, which had been inventoried by Poppell. It never says Morrissey did this knowingly, but explains prosecutor's obligation to know what was in the evidence.

I do wonder how Morrissey's continued defensiveness is going to play with this judge.

I didn't read the judge's order yet, but during her ruling from the bench she acknowledged that Hancock had said that Morrissey was part of the decision to put the rounds under a different case number. It would make NO sense to do that if there were no rounds that matched the live round that killed Hutchins. So, I agree there was no actual testimony that Morrissey new there were matching rounds, it is impossible for me to believe she didn't know. Non matching rounds would have no impact whatsoever and would not call into question the source of the rounds and there would have been no reason to put them under a different case number.

In spite of how often Seth Kenney lied about Thell Reed being the source of those rounds, the person who made the rounds said that he sold them to Seth Kenney. Kenney would have had no reason to travel to Texas except that he was delivering those rounds to Thell Reed who was hired to conduct the cowboy camp. Kenney's only involvement in that cowboy camp was to supply the ammunition used for that camp. Every one of Kenney's lies (Thell was the source of the rounds, Teske was a friend of Reed's and just an "acquaintance" of mine, I have no idea when I brought the ammo back to my shop, etc) had to do with those Starline brass with nickel primer.

I've never before seen a case where the prosecution and the most important witnesses all lied repeatedly. I will never forget the look on the judge's face after she asked Hancock if Morrissey herself was involved in the decision to put the rounds under a different case number. Of course, that's when Morrissey said she wanted to testify. At first the judge said "you better believe you will testify". Then, finally she told Morrissey she did not need her testimony. She had clearly made up her mind by that point and was trying to keep Morrissey from digging herself in deeper, I'm pretty sure of that.

[andersweinstein]

I didn't read the judge's order yet, but during her ruling from the bench she acknowledged that Hancock had said that Morrissey was part of the decision to put the rounds under a different case number. It would make NO sense to do that if there were no rounds that matched the live round that killed Hutchins. So, I agree there was no actual testimony that Morrissey new there were matching rounds, it is impossible for me to believe she didn't know. Non matching rounds would have no impact whatsoever and would not call into question the source of the rounds and there would have been no reason to put them under a different case number.

FWIW Morrissey's defense is that although she was part of the discussion, she did not understand that the procedure Hancock was suggesting implied a different case number because Morrissey was unfamiliar with police procedures and terminology.

I am actually willing to credit her with a good faith belief that the Teske rounds did not match the recovered live rounds. This is because Teske originally sent pictures of four of his rounds to Kenney, saying they were samples of ALL the types he had -- and none had the silver primers. Only one was Starline brass and all had a different style of projectile to boot. Also Kenney had even asked Teske if he had any with nickel primers and Teske said no. (These texts are shown in the State Response to the motion for new trial). So she was never that interested in collecting them since she had pretty good reason to believe they did not contain a match. They had also tested rounds from Kenney and those didn't match.

The weirdness happened when, at the end of the Gutierrez trial, he brought them in and 3 were indeed found to be physical matches: Starline brass casing with nickel primer. Poppell inventoried them and included this in her supplemental report.

The testimony from Hancock and Morrissey is that neither ever saw the rounds or the report before the envelope was opened in front of the Judge at the evidentiary hearing. So ... what happened there?

[RVInit]

I could believe Hancock and Morrissey if it hadn't been for the numerous other lies that both of them continued to tell. Hancock was a complete liar on the stand, until the judge finally asked, point blank WHO was in the meeting. Her first answer "I understand the rounds were supposed to be put it inventory" was a clear attempt to insinuate that she had NOTHING to do with the discussion. "I understand" that this is what was supposed to have happened. It wasn't until the judge asked point blank WHO was present. Even then she tried to hide that Morrissey herself was involved. it wasn't until the judge asked, point blank, "was Morrissey" in that meeting. And the response was "yes".

And this wasn't even the first underhanded thing Morrissey did. The incident involving Hass was even more reprehensible because there is no way she can weasel her way out of it. Haas provided a supplemental report that was clearly exculpatory for Baldwin. And Morrissey set up a meeting with Haas and her other expert in which they clearly browbeat him into deciding to change his opinion. And then he wasn't even comfortable enough to own that fact when it came out and he had to explain the meeting and the mysterious supplemental report that had never been given to the defense.

Sorry. Morrissey's many and continuous hiding of evidence makes her behavior in this instance equally suspicious. There are only so many times you can use the same basic excuse where it turns out to be bullshit and then use a similar excuse and oh, now I will believe her.

[RVInit]

[RVInit]

I did a quick read through of the judges written order dismissing the case and have a couple of comments for anyone who might be interested.

Regarding some of the statements made by Morrissey about the ammunition - these statements are based on provable lies told to investigators by Seth Kenney. In spite of the fact that Seth Kenney had no involvement with the Rust production, he rushed to the set and took over leading the investigators through gun and ammunition evidence on the scene. This is borne out by the many body camera videos from multiple police and investigators on the scene. He had no business interfering with this case at all, and I highly suspect that the reason he rushed down to the set to take over what should have been the prop master's job is because he, at the very least, was concerned that he could have been the source of the live round.

Here are some of the lies he told in order to keep investigators from looking at him

1. First, he claimed that the live rounds came from Thell Reed. The rounds were made by a man named Joe Swanson. Swanson gave an interview by phone to the lying lead investigator. He said that Seth Kenney contacted him to order 325 live rounds of ammunition* that were going to be delivered to Thell Reed in Texas to be used in a "cowboy camp" training for the 1883 TV show. Swanson sent the rounds to Seth Kenney. Seth Kenney and Joe Teske took those rounds to Texas for use in the cowboy camp. After the cowboy camp finished, Seth brought more than 100 live rounds back with him to PDQ. Thell Reed did not have a safe place to store ammunition, so Joe Teske took a handful of the leftover rounds back to his place in New Mexico. The rounds "came from Thell Reed" in the sense that Thell Reed ordered them from Seth, Seth got them from Joe Swanson, Seth brought them to Thell Reed, and then Seth brought most of the remaining live rounds back to New Mexico with him. Some of the additional leftovers came back to New Mexico with Joe Teske. There is some talk that some of what Joe Teske brought back "belonged to Thell Reed" but Reed had no place to store them so apparently he did not ever take them into his actual possession beyond whatever he physically handled at the cowboy camp.

2. Kenney claimed that Teske is a "friend of Thell Reed". Teske was a police officer and eventually chief of police in a town about 30 minute drive from Kenney's residence. During his interview, he eventually let it slip that he lived close to Teske and the two of them "often went out out to restaurants together". I was left with the impression that it was the opposite of what Keeney claimed. He claimed Teske was a friend of Thell and an acquaintance of Kenney. It seemed, after Kenney continue to run his mouth that it was slipping out that he and Teske had been quite close friends, lived near each other for many years and often "hung out" together. Characterizing Teske as a friend of Thell Reed would tend to cause investigators to view Teske with some skepticism. However, I am basing my evaluation of the relationship on the very interview between the lead investigator and Seth Kenney. If she is less able to pick up on the many seeming lies and inconsistencies coming from Seth Kenney then she has no business working as an investigator, mush less a lead investigator in a case where someone was killed.

3. Kenney claims he does not remember when he brought the live rounds back to PDQ after the cowboy camp. The cowboy camp was completely separate from the set of 1883 and was not being used on any permanent basis by the 1883 production. They rented the location only for the cowboy camp. It seems odd that Kenney can't remember when he brought the rounds back because there would have been no place for him to store those rounds at that location which was closed down after the cowboy camp. He and Teske drove straight back to New Mexico after the cowboy camp. So, I think he most likely does know exactly when he brought those live rounds back to PDQ.

These are the most significant falsehoods that Keeney said during interviews and testimony, at least most of the falsehoods regarding the ammunition. Inserting himself into the investigation and gladhanding with the investigators caused them to treat him as if he was just another investigator. He gladly led them by the nose, pointing the finger at everyone else, even at one point trying to insinuate JOE SWANSON by stating in front of the jury that he was "afraid that Joe Swanson would get pulled into this". Instead of having the prop master open the prop truck, Seth asked her for the combination and then told her to make herself scarce and he would handle showing the props to the police. He also conveniently showed them which boxes to open and look into when they searched PDQ five weeks after the shooting. CST Poppell lied on the witness stand, claiming they did a complete search of PDQ, but under cross examination she admitted they basically looked in whatever boxes Seth pointed them to, that PDQ was every bit as disorganized as the prop cart, and that at one time Kenney told them "you won't find any live rounds in 'that' box, and they did find live rounds in 'that' box.

I will never understand how they could be aware that Kenney provided all the gun related items for the set and at no time whatsoever did they ever suspect the live rounds could possibly have come from him. That is just stunningly stupid. I'm not saying they DID come from him, but they damn well could have come from him and he obviously knew it. That's why he had to rush down to the set and immediately make best friends with investigators, who were stupid enough to fall for his good ol' boy act.

*I think I probably failed to spell out the significance of some of those rounds. Swanson said that when he was filling Kenney's order for live rounds he was several rounds short of his current inventory of live rounds. His current inventory consisted of Starline brass casings with brass primers. He rummaged around and found 18 leftover Starline brass with nickel primer from a batch he had made "a while back". He stated that he could no longer get the nickel primer casings from Starline, they no longer offered those, so any newer Starline would have the brass primer instead of the nickel primer. It was a Starline brass with nickel primer that ended up in Baldwin's gun. An additional 5 live rounds were found in and around the box and cart being used by Hannah Gutierrez.

[RVInit]

For people who don't want to read the judge's order, Emily Baker did a good job of pulling out the most important elements contained in her opinion. And takes just a bit over ten minutes to do it. Worth a watch.

[andersweinstein]

Swanson said that when he was filling Kenney's order for live rounds he was several rounds short of his current inventory of live rounds. His current inventory consisted of Starline brass casings with brass primers. He rummaged around and found 18 leftover Starline brass with nickel primer from a batch he had made "a while back". He stated that he could no longer get the nickel primer casings from Starline, they no longer offered those, so any newer Starline would have the brass primer instead of the nickel primer. It was a Starline brass with nickel primer that ended up in Baldwin's gun.

I'm curious what the source is for the highlighted bit, that Swanson said he made some rounds with the "telltale" Starline Brass case + nickel primers, matching the 6 live rounds recovered from Rust set. I don't remember ever hearing that though there's certainly a lot I could have missed.

The big surprise about the rounds Teskse turned in is that that they turned out to contain 3 rounds matching the live ones from set in those respects. It was a surprise because the sample pictures he sent never showed any matches and he said they showed "all the types he could find" and he also responded to Kenney's question that he didn't find any with silver primers. This is allegedly why Morrissey was so uninterested, that they just seemed to be more non-matches that stayed in Arizona. So it seems like it would be significant.

[RVInit]

Swanson said that when he was filling Kenney's order for live rounds he was several rounds short of his current inventory of live rounds. His current inventory consisted of Starline brass casings with brass primers. He rummaged around and found 18 leftover Starline brass with nickel primer from a batch he had made "a while back". He stated that he could no longer get the nickel primer casings from Starline, they no longer offered those, so any newer Starline would have the brass primer instead of the nickel primer. It was a Starline brass with nickel primer that ended up in Baldwin's gun.

I'm curious what the source is for the highlighted bit, that Swanson said he made some rounds with the "telltale" Starline Brass case + nickel primers, matching the 6 live rounds recovered from Rust set. I don't remember ever hearing that though there's certainly a lot I could have missed.

The big surprise about the rounds Teskse turned in is that that they turned out to contain 3 rounds matching the live ones from set in those respects. It was a surprise because the sample pictures he sent never showed any matches and he said they showed "all the types he could find" and he also responded to Kenney's question that he didn't find any with silver primers. This is allegedly why Morrissey was so uninterested, that they just seemed to be more non-matches that stayed in Arizona. So it seems like it would be significant.

The source is Swanson himself. He was interviewed via phone by the police.

The highlighted part of your statement is what Seth Kenney asked him, however it's only PART of what Kenney asked him. Kenney had his fingers in the entire investigation, more than likely because he knew damn well that 1) PDQ was just as badly organized as Hannah's prop cart and 2) he knew damn well he could easily have been the person who comingled live and dummy rounds. In fact, CST Poppell admitted during that hearing that in fact they FOUND comingled rounds at PDQ. She was then asked "Did you suspect Seth Kenney"? and the shocking thing was she answered "no", just like Hancock always answered "no" when the defense pointed out clear evidence that Kenney may have been the very person that could very well have, at least accidentally, put those live rounds in the box along with the dummies.

There is no way I am going to believe Teske had any agenda while Seth Kenney didn't. Teske is the VERY person that Seth Kenney called to tell him specifically "I want to get Hannah fired, but I don't want Thell to find out I had anything to do with it". Yeah, right. A man is going to call THELL'S BEST FRIEND to tell him he wants to get THELL'S step daughter fired and doesn't want THELL to find out about it.

The liar and person who was moving the jars around the table is the one we are going to rely on.

[andersweinstein]

I'm curious what the source is for the highlighted bit, that Swanson said he made some rounds with the "telltale" Starline Brass case + nickel primers,

The source is Swanson himself. He was interviewed via phone by the police.

OK, thanks. So you read a transcript of this interview? Do you have a link? I'm curious to see it because this is a detail I never knew.

ETA: I know they released 550 pages of police documents at one point, but found it really hard to find things in that sea.

The liar and person who was moving the jars around the table is the one we are going to rely on.

Oh I 100% agree Kenney's behavior was suspicious AF, Detective Hancock, who seems a dim bulb, just let him lead around, the whole investigation was an inept botch, and who can believe Kenney's buddy Zachary throwing away dummy rounds after the shooting out of an emotional reaction. And yet -- there's also evidence implicating Gutierrez as the source of the live rounds.

It seems possible to me Kenney was taking pains to cover his ass just in case he was the accidental source of the live rounds from his highly disorganized shop, without ever knowing for sure if he was. Sounds like we are in complete agreement on this.

[RVInit]

There is a YouTube channel that had gotten all of the audio and I remember hearing that audio from that YouTube site. It's not a channel on my subscribe list and it was so long ago I would likely never find it in my history, if the history even goes back that far. I will try doing some search in YouTube and see if I can come up with at least the name of the channel and then we could probably find the specific video where the Swanson interview is contained. The guy who runs that channel seemed to be exceptionally gifted at doing FOIA requests, he had interviews I've never seen any of the more well known channels. I just wasn't interested enough after I listened to them initially to make a note of his channel name. I'll see if I can find it.

[RVInit]

I did a bit of searching and haven't come up with the video. The problem is when you search for Rust interviews you get pages and pages and pages of media and court tv listings. This was some guy. I did hit on "some guy" that DOES have a bunch of Rust interviews and for anyone really interested in seeing interviews with people on the set, things you really don't hear about, this looks like a possible gold mine. I listened to one this morning while cooking Mom's breakfast, and boy did I pick a good one. It has what MAY be Seth Kenney talking to Swanson, but it's not the one where Hancock talks to him on the phone. But there is actually something different on this video that I want to comment on. Well, two things.

1. Seth confirms that he supplied exclusively Starline Brass with Nickel primer dummies for the set of 1883. Why that is important is that it just goes to show he had both Starline brask nickel dummies and Starline brass nickel Live. We already knew that he admitted to bringing back the live from the 1883 cowboy camp. I want to find the video where he lets it slip out that he had stuff in boxes and while driving a box tips over and "I'm still finding rounds in the truck". Ok. That's interesting. You are supplying exclusively Starline brass nickel dummies for 1883 and then have a handful of Starline brass nickel LIVE from the cowboy camp. And both have been transported by truck and now you have oddball rounds you are STILL finding rolling around that van. OK.

2. This is the biggie because it involves one of the instances of a supplemental report by one of the prosecution gun experts and said report was never turned over to the defense. When Erlinda Johnson came on board, she turned over a trove of evidence to the defense and apparently there were tons of emails they eventually were able to slug through. One of those emails was a "we have an emergency" from prosecutor Morrissey to both of her gun experts wanting an immediate Zoom meeting and one of those emails mentioned a supplemental report. The defense was able to get a dismissal motion hearing involving the gun expert that wrote the supplemental report. That meeting is wild, the gun expert was clearly caught off guard and started claiming he couldn't hear the defense attorney when she started asking questions such as "You had the gun in your possession in (some year) and wrote a report and then no longer had the gun. Then, a year and a half later you provided a supplemental report (that contains MUCHO exculpatory evidence). Did you do some kind of re-examination of the gun that allowed you to write this report so long after you no longer had the gun?" Eventually he admitted "no", but I think it was on the following Monday because they had to stop the Friday hearing due to him all the sudden not being able to hear the defense. He heard the judge and even the defense lawyer when they started discussing postponing the meeting, but his hearing got really bad when actual questions were being addressed to him. But only the "hard" questions.

The subject of that supplemental report was that he saw a "defect" in the sear of the gun at the position where the sear would have been preventing the gun from firing when it it's in the fully cocked position. His report indicated that it appeared that some filing had been done, making that one position more able to release.

That is important because Baldwin, along with several other witnesses, said that he was being directed to pull the hammer back "a little bit". After checking lighting and how it looked he was asked to pull the hammer back more. And finally he was asked to fully cock the gun. They all said the gun went off pretty much immediately.

Seth talks about the incident where he had to fix a gun. There were two identical guns for Baldwin character. Baldwin actually had gotten frustrated because the whole point of the two guns were so they could both be ready for when there was going to be additional "takes". And Hannah never had the second gun ready. Anyway, Hannah had returned one of those guns to Seth to fix it because it was "stuck in the fully cocked position". He mentions that specifically in the video below at somewhere around the 9:10 mark (EDIT - I mixed this up with number 1. Number 1 happens at around 9:10). Although Kenney never stepped foot on the set during any day of filming, he makes sure to mention "it was the other gun, not the one in the incident". Yeah, how does he know that? Because honestly, I would be absolutely shocked if either Hannah or Sarah noticed the difference in the guns or had any idea of which gun they used for this take or that take. And if they don't know what they hell they did on what day how the hell does Seth Kenney know. But that's the problem with Seth. He spins stories to make absolutely certain that he can point the finger at everyone else. And he clearly has Hancock wrapped around his finger.

So, Baldwin gun got "stuck" in the fully cocked position. Seth fixed it so it wouldn't stick. Baldwin gun slips and fires almost as soon as it's put in the fully cocked position according than just Baldwin. Prosecution gun expert notices that the sear appears to have filed somewhat in the part corresponding to the fully cocked position, and that part is at a steeper angle than the quarter and half cocked positions, according to his report. Interesting. He writes this in a totally separate report way after he has already turned in his first report even though he has not re-inspected the gun. And he starts having a hard time hearing when the defense starts asking about the timing of when/how he came to this conclusion. And this supplement is never given to the defense and at an emergency meeting with Morrissey and the other gun expert he decides that maybe he doesn't have quite that same opinion any more. So, now, that's even more of an explanation of why the defense didn't really need to have that report. See, judge? It's all good!

Sadly, she did decide it was "all good". But this turned out to be the second to the last straw for her.

Notice in this video how chummy the lead detective is when she first meets Seth the day after the shooting. She has clearly spoken with him over the phone, but this video shows the first time she is meeting the person who supplied the rounds used on the set, the day after a person has died from her wounds, and he is telling her less than 10 minutes in that he supplied dummy rounds to 1883 that look EXACTLY like the live round that killed Hutchins. And she finds out later that he supplied the matching live rounds to 1883 cowboy camp AND that he brought them back to PDQ. And yet, he is never suspected of being the possible source of the live rounds in spite of numerous glaring lies and obvious finger pointing. He finger points here and seems to have all the gossip about who did what wrong and who is to blame. He's awfully "informed" awfully early in the game it seems.

Edit: I probably would have clicked out of this video after a minute or two, but I put it on and went to the kitchen to start cooking. You may want to just hang in there, it actually get to Hancokc's lapel camera very quickly, in spite of this guy is kind of weird and his opening is weird. Had I been right at my computer I might have rolled my eyes and clicked out. So bear with it.

[andersweinstein]

Thanks. I took an interest in this case, but RVinit sure knows a lot more details than I do.

The hearing on Gutierrez' motion for release/new trial or dismissal is now set for 9/27. A commenter I follow -- a former prosecutor who is writing on the case, regularly horrified by the tone and conduct of the Rust prosecutors and police early and late-- speculates that she set it almost two months after it was ripe because Judge expects to dismiss, but wants Gutierrez to serve some more time before that. Take that how you will.

My own NAL guess would be that the judge will find her way to keep Guttierrez in simply because she has no sympathy for her and all this doesn't bear that directly on her culpable failure to check the dummies she loaded. And the suppression of the Teske rounds does not bear on her case the way it does on Baldwin's because defense had access to that evidence. And sadly for her, Hannah's lawyer -- reportedly a friend of the family working pro bono -- is just not in the same league as Baldwin's. But Judge is also pretty pissed at the prosecutors, so we will see.

[RVInit]

Thanks. I took an interest in this case, but RVinit sure knows a lot more details than I do.

The hearing on Gutierrez' motion for release/new trial or dismissal is now set for 9/27. A commenter I follow -- a former prosecutor who is writing on the case, regularly horrified by the tone and conduct of the Rust prosecutors and police early and late-- speculates that she set it almost two months after it was ripe because Judge expects to dismiss, but wants Gutierrez to serve some more time before that. Take that how you will.

My own NAL guess would be that the judge will find her way to keep Guttierrez in simply because she has no sympathy for her and all this doesn't bear that directly on her culpable failure to check the dummies she loaded. And the suppression of the Teske rounds does not bear on her case the way it does on Baldwin's because defense had access to that evidence. And sadly for her, Hannah's lawyer -- reportedly a friend of the family working pro bono -- is just not in the same league as Baldwin's. But Judge is also pretty pissed at the prosecutors, so we will see.

Interesting, thanks for sharing this.

I'm not sure if Gutierrez lawyers knew about the Teske rounds early enough to get him added to their witness list. I do know that the day he actually showed up to the courthouse with the rounds in his hands was the day of closing statements in the Gutierrez trial. That is clearly too late to get that evidence in, but...it certainly is possible that her lawyers knew about those rounds before that date,

I agree that this judge did not seem to have the least bit of sympathy for Gutierrez. I think outright dismissal is probably out of the question. A new trial maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that either.

I'll keep looking for the Swanson interview. It's not very long, he doesn't say very much of interest, except the part about there only being a handful of the live Starline brass nickel primer. That really caught my attention because whether Hannah picked those up from being around her father at the cowboy camp, or they ended up mixed with the dummies by Seth, both of those are definite possibilities.

Hannah probably seem less credible because of her behavior in general, but Seth seems more suspect to me because of his lack of credibility specifically related to the ammo and guns plus all of the interference in the case. One thing I found interesting is that Seth mentioned in one of the many interviews that Hannah contacted him a couple of times while she was in route from the cowboy camp to the set of the The Old Way and she was telling him that she wanted to locate some 45 live rounds. Why that struck me is that the story is supposedly that she got those live rounds from her father at the cowboy camp. And yet she was calling him asking him if he had any 45 live ammo.

It's a puzzle for sure. I'm not sure a jury would find her more credible than Seth. Seth got himself in good with detectives and prosecution early in the game and they have just plain ignored all the inconsistencies and questionable facts. I have the benefit of not being on the jury and I can use all these various interviews to put things together. I agree that Hannah's lawyers are nowhere near the caliber (no pun intended) of Baldwin's lawyers. She is screwed I believe.

Good lawyers matter.

[andersweinstein]

I'm not sure if Gutierrez lawyers knew about the Teske rounds early enough to get him added to their witness list. I do know that the day he actually showed up to the courthouse with the rounds in his hands was the day of closing statements in the Gutierrez trial. That is clearly too late to get that evidence in, but...it certainly is possible that her lawyers knew about those rounds before that date,

Teske had been on the defense witness list for some time. He might have been removed from their final witness list. But when he handed in the rounds he told police he met with Bowles and Bowles told him he wasn't going to use him. At some point Bowles had also asked Morrissey to collect and test the powder in Teske's rounds and she declined but said he was free to have them tested himself. I saw an interview where he said all their experts were also working pro bono (explaining, perhaps, the odd behavior of their firearm guy). Maybe defense just didn't have the funds to have them tested on spec of what they might find. But there's no question defense knew of the existence of this potential evidence.

I'll keep looking for the Swanson interview. It's not very long, he doesn't say very much of interest, except the part about there only being a handful of the live Starline brass nickel primer. That really caught my attention because whether Hannah picked those up from being around her father at the cowboy camp, or they ended up mixed with the dummies by Seth, both of those are definite possibilities.

AFAIK Hannah didn't go with them to 1883 cowboy camp. As I recall Kenney's testimony, they all met up somewhere en route, then split up, with Hannah driving north to the Nicolas Cage movie, while Thell and Seth went south to Texas for the cowboy camp. Then Seth held on to the leftover live rounds they had brought with them from Thell's Swanson-produced batch.

I find all this stuff about the rounds a little confusing since the Teske rounds belonged to Thell Reed (Teske was simply storing them safely for him). So how do they implicate Kenney and not Hannah, who could also have gotten some from her dad? I *think* I recall Bowles asserting in an interview that Hannah never had access to Thell's Swanson-supplied rounds stored with Teske. So that is a key premise of that theory as used by the defense.

While Kenney is suspicious, let's not forget two things. It is not clear the jury had to believe Hannah was the source of the live rounds. The jury instructions allow them to convict her simply for failing to make an adequate safety check and knowing that was reckless. Even if someone deliberately sabotaged the rounds, it was her job to check what she loaded.

Second there is the prosecutor's evidence: they have a picture of Hannah with a tray of .45 Colt dummies taken BEFORE Kenney supplied his single box of dummies to the set. Two in the set are "odd men out" with silver primers. Then after the shooting they recovered a similar tray of dummies with only one such odd man out, in the exact same position as in the earlier photograph, and it turned out to be a live round. Bowles said the contents of these trays were changed frequently so this was not proof beyond reasonable doubt, which may be true, but it is certainly very suggestive. Prosecution also has an earlier photograph from her phone of her holding live rounds matching that description. And she just seems staggeringly irresponsible in other ways.

[RVInit]

I'm not sure if Gutierrez lawyers knew about the Teske rounds early enough to get him added to their witness list. I do know that the day he actually showed up to the courthouse with the rounds in his hands was the day of closing statements in the Gutierrez trial. That is clearly too late to get that evidence in, but...it certainly is possible that her lawyers knew about those rounds before that date,

Teske had been on the defense witness list for some time. He might have been removed from their final witness list. But when he handed in the rounds he told police he met with Bowles and Bowles told him he wasn't going to use him. At some point Bowles had also asked Morrissey to collect and test the powder in Teske's rounds and she declined but said he was free to have them tested himself. I saw an interview where he said all their experts were also working pro bono (explaining, perhaps, the odd behavior of their firearm guy). Maybe defense just didn't have the funds to have them tested on spec of what they might find. But there's no question defense knew of the existence of this potential evidence.

I'll keep looking for the Swanson interview. It's not very long, he doesn't say very much of interest, except the part about there only being a handful of the live Starline brass nickel primer. That really caught my attention because whether Hannah picked those up from being around her father at the cowboy camp, or they ended up mixed with the dummies by Seth, both of those are definite possibilities.

AFAIK Hannah didn't go with them to 1883 cowboy camp. As I recall Kenney's testimony, they all met up somewhere en route, then split up, with Hannah driving north to the Nicolas Cage movie, while Thell and Seth went south to Texas for the cowboy camp. Then Seth held on to the leftover live rounds they had brought with them from Thell's Swanson-produced batch.

I find all this stuff about the rounds a little confusing since the Teske rounds belonged to Thell Reed (Teske was simply storing them safely for him). So how do they implicate Kenney and not Hannah, who could also have gotten some from her dad? I *think* I recall Bowles asserting in an interview that Hannah never had access to Thell's Swanson-supplied rounds stored with Teske. So that is a key premise of that theory as used by the defense.

While Kenney is suspicious, let's not forget two things. It is not clear the jury had to believe Hannah was the source of the live rounds. The jury instructions allow them to convict her simply for failing to make an adequate safety check and knowing that was reckless. Even if someone deliberately sabotaged the rounds, it was her job to check what she loaded.

Second there is the prosecutor's evidence: they have a picture of Hannah with a tray of .45 Colt dummies taken BEFORE Kenney supplied his single box of dummies to the set. Two in the set are "odd men out" with silver primers. Then after the shooting they recovered a similar tray of dummies with only one such odd man out, in the exact same position as in the earlier photograph, and it turned out to be a live round. Bowles said the contents of these trays were changed frequently so this was not proof beyond reasonable doubt, which may be true, but it is certainly very suggestive. Prosecution also has an earlier photograph from her phone of her holding live rounds matching that description. And she just seems staggeringly irresponsible in other ways.

Some of what is here turned out to be lies. Kenney claimed at one point that he only supplied one box of 50 dummy rounds. However, the defense got him on cross examination to admit that he had supplied multiple boxes of dummy rounds and they were supplied at different times. They were able to get him to admit to having supplied 200 dummy rounds total, they found that information buried in his invoices. They had way too many bandoliers, at times too many people in the same scenes for 50 dummies to be a believable figure anyway.

Swanson (and even Kenney, but you have to listen carefully to everything he says, things slip out because he can't shut his freaking mouth) specifically said that KENNEY is the one who bought the ammo to supply to Thell and Kenney admitted that he brought some back and also that Teske brought some back. They only "belonged" to Thell in the sense that Thell had paid for Kenney to bring them. If what you are saying about Hannah never stepping foot on that cowboy camp then that's even MORE proof that she didn't get them from Thell. Thell got them from Kenney AT the Cowboy camp. He did NOT bring them to the camp. I understand that Kenney had spun so many lies , and that is his BIGGEST lie. He claimed that THELL was the one who brought them to the cowboy camp, but even when he makes that claim listen carefully to how he words it. Because he actually just insinuates it without actually saying it. But later at some point he admitted it.

A lot of what you are stating as facts are things that Kenney has said, and they are just plain lies. And Morrissey and Hancock repeat his lies. I am going to post another one of Kenney's videos with even more shady things that Kenney did that I actually did not realize until today, listening to his OWN interview.

[RVInit]

Here is another "interview" of Seth. Except it's far from what could be considered to be an interview. Hancock insists that the number of times that she sat down with Seth Kenney proves that she investigated him. There is nothing in even one single interview that I have ever seen (yet) that I would say Hancock was actually interviewing Kenney as a potential source of the ammunition. Including this one. She is showing him all the evidence and getting his help in figuring out how to make sure Hannah is blamed for all of it. No, she is not convicted of supplying the live round. Nobody was. There was never anyone charged in connection with supplying a live round, including Hannah.

Here is what just dawned on me while listening to this video. I only got just over 25 minutes into it while making Mom lunch and getting her fed. I don't know if I will continue listening to it.

What struck me in this video is that Kenney mentions that reporters are now hanging around asking him questions, and he specifically mentions that one of them asked him something about his reputation. He laughs about it because he makes it sound like he has schmoozed the reporter just as he's done with Hancock and Poppell. And they are apparently teasing him and laughing with him about his reputation. Later in the video he tells Hancock one of the same rumors that the media just happened to be reporting, which turned out to be completely false. What's interesting is that Hancock tells Seth that she heard that rumor, too, and "we have been asking everyone on the set and nobody knows anything about it and they all say they never heard of it". So it seems that Seth (who has been talking to the media_ and the media are the only ones who know anything about this rumor. The particular one mentioned in this video is the one that supposedly Hannah was using the guns after hours to go shooting.

The interesting thing is there is a different rumor that he brings up in the first video that I linked above, and that one has rumors about Baldwin. The particular rumor he tells in that video is that Baldwin was playing around with the gun in the church and Seth tells Hancock something along the lines of that being unacceptable, yada yada yada. In that same video Hancock tells Seth something along the lines of not believing everything the media says. Detectives had already interviewed every person that was in the church at the time of the incident, and every one of them confirmed that nothing untoward had gone on, nobody was playing around with guns, Baldwin was handed the gun, it was called "cold gun" and Baldwin put it into his holster and never removed it until he was directed to draw it. So, interesting here is yet one more false rumor that Seth is telling Hancock and the media apparently hears it from someone, but nobody on the set has said it.

I have a sneaking suspicion about who was passing false information to the media. And of course, the only false information passed to the media was about Hannah and Baldwin, the same people that Seth Kenney was bad mouthing and claiming to know what they were doing on a set where he never stepped foot.

I think "dim bulb" is a compliment to Hancock, makes her sound way smarter and on top of things than I would give her credit for.

[andersweinstein]

A lot of what you are stating as facts are things that Kenney has said, and they are just plain lies.

OK, I don't have a basis myself to know what parts of his statements were definitively refuted.

Swanson (and even Kenney, but you have to listen carefully to everything he says, things slip out because he can't shut his freaking mouth) specifically said that KENNEY is the one who bought the ammo to supply to Thell and Kenney admitted that he brought some back and also that Teske brought some back. They only "belonged" to Thell in the sense that Thell had paid for Kenney to bring them. If what you are saying about Hannah never stepping foot on that cowboy camp then that's even MORE proof that she didn't get them from Thell. Thell got them from Kenney AT the Cowboy camp. He did NOT bring them to the camp. I understand that Kenney had spun so many lies , and that is his BIGGEST lie. He claimed that THELL was the one who brought them to the cowboy camp, but even when he makes that claim listen carefully to how he words it. Because he actually just insinuates it without actually saying it. But later at some point he admitted it.

OK, I find the provenance of these rounds very confusing. But the Gutierrez lawsuit of Kenney (which wound up dismissed) included this:

Troy would also testify that Hannah never had access to the reloaded, live rounds kept at his house for Thell Reed. Troy can verify that he gave the ammo can containing live reloaded rounds to Thell in August, to go to his movie shoot.

So I thought Thell retrieved rounds stored at Teskes to carry to the 1883 cowboy camp in his green ammo can.

[RVInit]

So I listened to about another 6 or 7 minutes of the last video above and lo' and behold this appears to be the initial time that he's introducing Hancock to Troy Teske and pretending like this is Thell's friend and not his friend.

FIrst, he pretends that he doesn't know Troy Teske's name. He calls him a Sheriff from Arizona, and then he continues to pretend he doesn't know his name. Then he says "let's call him" and happens to have his phone number saved in his phone. You know, the guy that's not HIS friend, but he's THELL'S friend. Just happens to have a contact set up in his phone for this friend of Thell's that he doesn't remember his name. So, when Teske answers the phone Teske immediately says' "Hey buddy". That is HOW he answers the phone.

Ok, so obviously not only does Seth have Teske's phone number, but Teske has Seth's phone number because he KNOWS who it is before Seth says one single word. He's recognized Seth from and says "Hey Buddy!" Teske goes on to tell Seth he's getting ready to eat dinner, so Seth says "I'm calling you about that thing". So, now, obviously not only is THELL'S friend, actually pretty fucking well known to Seth, enough they both have each other's phone numbers, but now we see that Seth has already had some discussion with Teske abut the very thing he's calling him about right now, because, you know, he want to talk about 'that thing".

Yeah, nothing at all suspect about Seth Kenney. He's just an innocent stand up dude trying to help the police figure out what's going on.

Good lord, now I'm almost ready to commit to listening to another 7 minutes to see what new lie, misdirection, or slightly not quite right insinuation good ol' boy will come up with to lead Hancock down the exact path he needs her to go down in order for her not to ever wonder if there is any other possibility of where those live rounds came from.

And by the way nobody ever said that Thell took ammo to Texas except for Seth Kenney. You keep just repeating what Seth Kenney is telling people. The same Seth Kenney I just now described yet ANOTHER fucking lie he just now told only 7 minutes after the last lie. The video I'm describing is linked above.

[RVInit]

I keep forgetting to mention something also quite important. Even the police were unable to tell the difference between many of the dummies and the live rounds that had the nickel primer. So, I have no idea how they had to send the ammo from the set to determine whether it was live or dummy, but somehow they can tell from a photo that Hannah had a LIVE round with nickel primer without testing it, just knew it was "live" from a photo.

At the same time that it is known that she worked on "The Old Way", which Seth Kenney supplied guess what - dummies with nickel primer. Exclusively. No other primer. But that photo MUST be live

[RVInit]

I don't believe I'm going to listen to much more tonight, but I've heard another 20 minutes.

Seth Kenney has now called Troy Teske (I think I accidentally called him Joe Teske in other posts), and here is where Seth excels at pulling the wool over Hancock's eyes. Way too many people repeat most of Kenney's lies.

Seth and Troy have already previously talked about "that thing", likely "that thing" refers to something about the ammunition. He's looking for Troy to back up his story that Troy has in his possession ammo that belongs to Thell Reed.

But eventually Teske informs Seth that he no longer has ANY of THELL's ammunition. He is very clear about the fact that it has been two years since he has kept any ammunition for Thell. In spite of Kenney trying multiple times to "remind" Teske that he has Thell's ammo from the cowboy camp, Teske says no, that any ammo that he brought home from the cowboy camp is not Thell's it's his own. And he reminds Kenney that the two of them split the ammo. He reiterates that any ammunition he ever had that belonged to Thell has already been used up more than two years ago. This conversation is taking place just a few days after the Rust shooting.

Kenney starts to talk about Starline being unusual and then Teske says "so you want to see if I have any Starline brass.?" and Kenney answers "Yes". Hancock never reminds him that we also need to see if there are nickel primers. Initially Kenney says "Thell owes me $3000 so I want a dozen of his ammo" and Teske says "You have to talk to Thell about that". He doesn't want to be in the middle of it. Then he agrees to send a photo. So, that is how they got the photo of the "ones that don't match". But it is very clear that Kenney is only asking him for Starline. Nothing about what color the primer is. So, Teske just pulls a small number of Starline and that is what is in the photo that Morrissey insists "does not match". But in spite of Hancock reminding Seth to mention to Teske that they are specifically looking for live with NICKEL primer, Seth never says that to Teske. So Teske just pulls a handful of whatever comes out of his box, he doesn't try to look for anything specific except for "Starline".

Hancock asks "so, do they belong to Thell"? And Seth ignores her and gets Teske talking about something else, and then eventually just asks him to send a photo of a Starline. Hancock now reminds him which ones she wants, but Seth continues talking to Teske and ignores the nickel primer that Hanock is now reminding him of. So, by the end of the phone call Teske has not been asked if he found any that matches the primer. Seth is clearly ignoring her because now it's clear that Teske only has the ammo that was split between him and Kenney and Kenney. Teske also tells him he won't be sending the photo for another hour because he's not home. Seth says he won't stay at the station, he'll just send the photo to Hancock after he gets it.

Hancock says "we can always get a warrant" and all the sudden Seth is now saying "oh no, he'll give us the photo". He is definitely at this point (now that he knows those are NOT Thell's rounds) he doesn't want a warrant. A warrant would likely ask for ALL of the ammo if Hancock got a warrant.

[RVInit]

I was trying to find specific photos of ammunition so I could put all the discussion about the dummy and live rounds in one place along with photos. I can't find photos that people have used to "prove" that Hannah HAD to have been the source of the live rounds found on the set of Rust. Since I can't find the photos, the best I can do will have to come from interviews, police body camera, and camera inside the interview room where Hannah was brought directly from the set of Rust. I think that is enough. So, this post will discuss that.

In the next post I will provide photos that contain pretty compelling evidence, along with all the manipulation and lies from Seth, that in fact, those live rounds more than likely came from Seth Kenney.

As to Hannah, I think we are all in agreement that she failed to detect a live round prior to putting it into the gun. In spite of the fact that during her first interview, linked at the bottom, detectives give her multiple opportunities to point her finger at other people, even suggesting who those other people might be, Hannah is clear that she is the one who loaded the gun. During no interview with police did Hannah ever try to deflect to anyone else. The most she does is try to pretend that she is more naive about ammunition than what she really is. She doesn't use proper terminology for the parts of a live round, tries to act like she's less familiar than what she really is. She tries to pretend that she doesn't understand that there must have been an actual live round in that gun. She knows enough about ammo, how it all works to have relalized that it was a live round, even if she is NOT the person who mixed up dummies and live. And I don't think she is the one who did that. Aside from her deception about how much she understands ammo, she's pretty forthcoming about everything else.

She not only talks about her habits of how she handles ammo on the set, but there is police video that backs up her description of how she deals with ammo during the day. As she removes ammo from boxes, she puts some of it in her pockets and some in her fanny pack that she wears around her waist. Police video backs that up perfectly. She put dummies in her pockets, and she put blanks in her fanny pack. At one point during her first interview she reaches into that pocket and pulls out dummy rounds straight from the set of Rust. Body cameras clearly show they find blanks in her fanny pack - just like she said she did. She says this is what she does every day, and there is absolutely no reason, no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Both her pockets and her fanny pack go back to the hotel room with her at the end of each day. So, the fact that there is a photo taken in her hotel room that shows a small number of rounds that look EXACTLY like the DUMMY and LIVE from the set of Rust should be no damn surprise and likely mean nothing more than after she got back to the hotel room she empties her pockets, which is the place where she has been shoving ammo that came from the DUMMY box into her pockets as she is going about her business working on the set.

There is absolutely no reason to jump to any conclusions that the ammo in that photo in her hotel room In Arizona, where she is coming back from the set of Rust day after day after day MUST be ammo that she brought from a different set in Montana. None. (Also, read the next post for probably what is the best proof that the live rounds came from Seth Kenney)

Given her habits of shoving dummies from Rust into her pockets, it is far more of a stretch to say that she brought live ammo from Montana and decided to put it on a table in a hotel room in New Mexico, than it is to believe she came back to her hotel room from a day on the set of Rust, went to take off her pants, realize she has rounds still in her pocket from her habit of putting those rounds in her pockets, and simply removed them and put them on that table.

Here is the video from her first interview. During this interview she reaches into her pockets and removes some dummies that she had put into her pocket the day of the shooting. Clearly she is telling the truth about how she puts dummies into her pockets on the set. At around 26:11 she starts talking about "if I had a bullet I can show you what I mean" and shortly after she reaches into her pocket and removes those dummies.





In my next post I am going to provide photos of the actual insert from the box that Seth Kenney provided that show ONE live round in that same box. And I will also point out something compelling in that photo that shows that Seth Kenney more than likely mixed those live rounds in with those dummies as he prepared them for placing them into that box.

[RVInit]

In this post I am going to show why it is far more likely that Seth Kenney mixed the live rounds into the box that he gave to Sarah Zachary to bring to the set of Rust.

I want to start out by explaining why I know something about patinating metal. I have a hobby of making jewelry. I don't work with strings and beads, I work with actual raw metal. I work with copper, red brass, yellow brass, bronze, nickel, sterling silver, and fine silver mostly. All of these metals can be patinated. The general idea is that you are darkening the metal, sometimes to the point of actual black, and then you can use rotary tools, buffs, course cloths, whatever, to remove the patina back to the actual point of getting the desired effect. Patina can be used to make something look aged or it can be used when you have different textures and layers and want to deepen the "shadows" and make the textures and layers stand out and "pop". I should mention here that although you can patinate nickel, the difference between patinated nickel and unpatinated nickel is not that great. And also you have to use different chemicals to patinate nickel than would be used to patinate brass. I made mixed metal pieces all the time, and if nickel is part of the piece and I want to age the nickel it has to be done separately from the rest of the piece using a different method or chemical.

Because patina is a largely manual process, you are first making it dark then you are removing whatever amount of the darkening until you get just the right effect, it is very difficult to get them to look exactly the same. And you can certainly overdo the removal and end up removing more than you intended. It's like everything else, the more you do it, the more you learn to control the process, you build a little muscle memory as well as your "eye" for it.

It turns out that patina is the most compelling proof that Seth Kenney is the one who mixed the live with the dummies. It hit me as I was making a piece of jewelry and working on the patina all the sudden.....bam....I took a closer look at the photos of the dummy and live from the Baldwin case.

Kenney loves to brag, loves to show off just how awesome of an armorer he really is. And in the case of the dummy rounds that Seth provided for the set of Rust, he is particularly proud of those rounds. During the successful motion to dismiss hearing, he repeated something that I had remembered him bragging about before in at least one of the many times got together with detective Hancock to lead her to her conclusions. First, he makes sure to mention that he has worked on thousands and thousands of sets, provided millions and millions of dummies and blanks. But Rust was special. Those dummies for Rust took him longer than anything he ever worked on in his entire career. He spent more time with those rounds than he ever spent with any other rounds. He loved to repeat this story of how he patinated each and every one of those dummies and how he had to then use a course cloth to wipe off each one so it left just the perfect amount of aging on those rounds. He is particularly proud of that, and he mentions he never did that for ANY other set he can remember, this was something super duper special.

The cowboy camp that has been mentioned was a camp that was set up so that the cast from 1883 could practice shooting real live bullets to get the feel of it. Seth Kenney was not hired teach in that camp. He wasn't hired to do anything for that camp. The only reason he drove to that camp was to deliver those 325 live rounds that Thell Reed needed to conduct that camp. And then he brought back some of those rounds. Most of those live rounds were Starline brass with brass primer, but a small hand full were reloads that Joe Swanson had made. Kenney is kind enough to mention to a detective that Swansom doesn't have a license to make live rounds, he can only buy and resell them. And that he will lose his license if the ATF finds out he has a habit of "reloading" dummies to turn them into live rounds.

The fact that the live round that killed Hutchins turned out to be one of those Starline brass with nickel primer reloads that Swanson illegally made actually caused Seth Kenney to write a now famous text message. "Shit shit shit shit shit.....BUT....she still didn't do her job". The shit shit shit shit shit part is his realization that those rounds can be traced back to him (and possibly get Swanson's ammo dealer license pulled)....BUT....it's all good because the important thing is that Hannah is the one who put one of them into a gun.

The cowboy camp was held shortly before Rust. Hannah worked on The Old Way for 5 weeks right before Rust. Her father's cowboy camp was held on the mid to back end of the time frame that Hannah was in Montana for The Old Way. On a phone call just a few days after the Rust shooting, in the police interview room on speaker phone as loud and clear as can be, Troy Teske told Seth Kenney, with Hancock sitting next to him, that he has not had any live ammunition that belonged to Thell Reed in over two years. When the prosecutor says that the live rounds from the cowboy camp "belonged to Thell Reed", she is repeating a lie that Seth Kenney tells. Even though Detective Hancock is sitting right next to Seth when Troy Teske tells him that Thell NEVER took any of the left over live rounds from the cowboy camp for himself, she ignores that, and they all continue to claim that Thell "owns" some of those rounds. That is supposed to make everyone believe that he gave live rounds to Hannah and she brought them to the set.

Those 325 live rounds are discussed in an earlier post, they are brand new at the time of the cowboy camp, they came from Joe Swanson. He had mostly brass with brass primer, but he fell short of the 325 that were ordered for the camp, so he pulled somewhere around 18 "reloads", which were brass with nickel primer. They were transported all mixed up in a green can similar to a coffee can. And Teske took some of the leftovers for himself and then Seth brought the green ammo can back to PDQ with him. And remember, these were new rounds, so they would be bright and shiny like the two photos below.

So....why would Starline brass with nickel primer live rounds have the same patina on them that Seth Kenney so proudly and perfectly applied to the dummy rounds? I am quite certain Seth Kenney did not sit down and painstakingly apply patina to the 325 rounds he received from Joe Swanson to take to the cowboy camp so that they could be shot out of a gun and never be seen on camera. In all his travels, spilling rounds on the floor of his van, and exclusively working with Dummies with NICKEL primer for 1883, Seth Kenney likely mixed some of the LIVE from the cowboy camp with the dummies for Rust. He patinated them along with the dummies, and put them into the box of dummies for Rust.

The photo that shows rounds primer side up in the foam insert is a photo that law enforcement took of what was inside the box of rounds that Sarah brought to the set from PDQ/Seth Kenney. The round that has the red box around it is one of the rounds that was found to be a live round. The center of the primer is the part that is made from nickel. As I mentioned above, nickel doesn't patinate along with the other metals when you have a "mixed metal" piece, so you can see it looks silver. That nickel primer is surrounded by the brass and you can clearly see the brass on that live round is patinated just like all dummy rounds inside that same box. You can see they are hand patinated, they are all "dark" but not all exactly the same darkness. The bottom row far right shows a round that he's wiped quite a bit of the patina off of it, it has lots of brighter areas on it.

The defense made sure that during cross examination that they got Seth Kenney to repeat over and over again and again that for the set of 1883 that every dummy round he provided for the set of 1883 were exclusively NICKEL primers. (This is likely why he accidentally included some live nickel primer bullets in with Rust dummies - he was very accustomed to working with dummies that had NICKEL primers, it probably didn't even occur to him it could be a live round. There were very few live rounds that had the nickel primer, and they had been all mixed up into a can from Swanson, it's possibly Kenney didn't even KNOW any of the 325 bullets in that can had nickel primers, since more than 300 of them were all brass with brass primer.

While he was applying patina to the dummies for the set of Rust, shortly after he had made repeated trips to Texas for the cowboy camp and also for actual set of 1883, he did not recognize that those NICKEL PRIMER were LIVE because he was very recently supplying dummies for the set of 1883 that ONLY had nickel primers. The defense also established that Kenney is a heavy drinker, and Seth HIMSELF in all his tongue wagging mentioned how he was crawling all over his truck after coming back from the cowboy camp, finding assorted rounds all over the floor of the truck after boxes slipped off the seats and spilled all over. He even says he is STILL finding live rounds in that truck. He probably had dummies and live rounds all over the floor and since ALL the dummies were from 1883 and ALL the 1883 dummies had NICKEL primer, and there were 100's of them all over the place, it is not beyond belief that he likely used the color of the primer to separate the dummies from live, instead of sitting there shaking every single one of those 100's of rounds.

So yeah, with all these facts, mostly from the mouth of Seth Kenney himself, his story that Hannah had to be the source of the live rounds just doesn't seem likely. To believe she was source, we have to believe that Hannah (who was in Montana) met up with her father (who was in Texas), who gave her live rounds (which were BRAND NEW) and she brought them to the set. But the "proof" that she brought some of these brand new live rounds to the set of Rust is actually a photo of PATINATED AMMO. Clearly it's the other way around. She didn't bring ammo from her hotel room to the set, she brought ammo from the set to her hotel room.

Also, remember her habit of using her pockets to temporarily hold dummies while she is working, and using her fanny pack to hold blanks while she is working? Ok, so now we are supposed to believe that she brought a (somehow patinated brand new) live round from her hotel room, and in spite of the fact that she normally put the "working rounds" of dummies INTO her pocket FROM the box, for some (whut????) reason she just decided to take dummies FROM her pocket and put them INTO the box at the same time she's taking rounds FROM the box and putting them INTO her pockets. When you see the photos of the box that she was working from, it was a full box they just opened that morning, and only a handful of rounds are missing. If you add up how many she pulled out of her pocket at the police station to the number that had been put into Baldwin's gun, they pretty much add up to how many rounds are removed from the box insert. That foam insert has a hole for each round, the dummies weren't just loose in a box, the insert has 5 rows of 10 and had been full when Hannah started work that morning. There wouldn't have been a way for Hannah to bring 5 live rounds from off the set and put them into that box that morning and still have the number of empty holes shown in that photo after removing 6 rounds for Baldwin's gun and putting a handful of rounds into her pocket. And again, all those live rounds have the patina, which was specially done by Seth.

Here are three photos, one of them is the actual insert that law enforcement removed from the box of dummies that Sarah Zachary brought from PDQ/Seth Kenney. The other two photos show what the same type of metal looks like when it is not patinated. You can see from the patinated ammo that it is difficult to make them all look exactly the same "age", it's a manual process. Even when metal oxidizes just from being exposed for a long time to oxygen, it tends not to age uniformly, although it's more uniform if it naturally oxidizes than if it's manually patinated.

That is why I include two photos of ammo that is not patinated, so it's pretty obvious that not only the dummies are patinated, but also that live round with nickel primer is also patinated. Remember, the nickel part doesn't react the same with the chemical used to patinate brass, that small center part is still going to be shiny, just like the photo. But the brass part surrounding the small nickel "button" is clearly aged with the patina Seth used for all those rounds. The non patinated photos is what those live rounds with nickel primer would have looked like a couple of months after they were used for the cowboy camp. It takes a long time, more than two or three months for brass to oxidize naturally. The live rounds would NEVER have been as dark as they were if Hannah had brought them from Thell from the cowboy camp. So, they would still have looked pretty new by the time of the Rust shooting. Teske was pretty clear that Hannah's step father did NOT take any of the live ammo from the cowboy camp, and the photo from Hannah's phone showing ammo in her hotel room very clearly showed the same patinated ammo that Kenney specifically "aged" by his own account only for the set of Rust. Those two photos on the bottom are what the ammo on the top photo would have looked like before Kenney patinated them. The chemicals to darken metal take minutes to work. You brush it on, let it set, then wipe as much of it off as you want, leaving it as dark, or light, as you desire. The time consuming part is the part where you are one by one wiping each piece of ammo off to get just the right look that you want.

RustAmmoPatinatedNicxkelPrimer.jpeg (11.42 KiB) Viewed 666 times

NickelPrimerNotPatinated.jpeg (4.84 KiB) Viewed 666 times

NickelPrimer2NotPatinated.jpeg (5.95 KiB) Viewed 574 times

I hate to keep updating this post. I wish I had polished (no pun intended) my words and worked on it prior to posting. But here it is ladies and gentleman. Straight from the motion to dismiss hearing on DIRECT EXAMINATION (where Seth Kenney tells one lie after another, that's a WHOLE other long post). But here they are showing what TESKE sent to Seth shortly after that interview with Hancock that I posted above. And what do you know. Those rounds that Teske has are BRIGHT SHINY BRAND NEW ROUNDS. I was trying to find this photo separately, couldn't find it, but here it is contained in the video at the motion hearing. And this is no surprise at all. You do NOT put patina on live rounds intended to be put into a real gun unless you intend to also corrode the gun by exposing to these harsh chemicals. Go to 5:09:05 to see the photo. I am having a hard time putting this video at just the exact place I wanted it.

[RVInit]

I should have mentioned in the post above that metal with naturally obtain a patina within some time unless it's kept in some type of bag that prevents oxidation. If you leave sterling silver exposed to air, it will "tarnish". That is a form of natural oxidation or natural "patina". Jewelers usually keep special bags to put sterling silver jewelry in to prevent unwanted tarnishing. However, brass is brass. There is no "grade" or "jewelry grade", it's all the same. Jewelers use the same brass as ammo manufacturers would use. Since they weren't willing to take Teske's rounds when they were still new, and only took them after a couple of years, they could also look "patinated", but, probably not nearly as dark as the patina that was purposely applied by Kenney.

Hancock really screwed this case up. Between ignoring all the inconsistencies in all the conversations with Kenney, not taking in any evidence if it didn't fit her theory, she blew it. Not all unsolved cases are unsolved for the same reason. However, I think it's safe to say that any case where the detective is dead set on a specific guilty party and that party is NOT guilty to the point where she is asking the likely guilty party to help her find evidence against the one whose NOT guilty - safe to say that is going to remain an "unsolved" crime or unsolved situation.