1. On January 19, 2023, prosecutors in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, said that Alec Baldwin would be charged with unintentional manslaughter for the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021. This happened while Baldwin was practising a scene for the independent Western film “Rust.” Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was in charge of making the movie’s weapons, faces the same charge.
Alec has always said that he shot Halyna by accident because someone told him the gun he was holding wasn’t loaded. In fact, there are still questions about why live rounds of ammunition were even on the set in New Mexico. Luke Nikas, the actor and producer’s lawyer, pushed back on the news.
“This decision messes up the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins and is a terrible mistake of justice. Mr. Baldwin had no reason to think there was a real bullet in the gun or anywhere else on the movie set. He trusted the people he worked with, who told him the gun didn’t have any live rounds. In a statement, he said, “We will fight these charges and win.” If found guilty, both the “Boss Baby” star and the armourer could spend up to five years in prison.
2. Kobe Bryant, who played for the Los Angeles Lakers and was known as one of the best players of all time, died in a shocking helicopter crash on January 26, 2019. He was 41. His 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Maria Onore, was one of the nine people who died in the accident. When the helicopter crashed in Calabasas, California, Kobe and Gianna were on their way to her basketball practise. (He often took a helicopter to work.)
3. In February 2015, Caitlyn Jenner hit two cars in Malibu, California, while pulling an off-road vehicle behind her Cadillac Escalade. During the accident, a woman’s car was pushed into the other lane, where it was hit by a Hummer. She passed away. After a few months, the prosecutors said they would not charge the driver with vehicular manslaughter.
4. It’s still hard to believe that Paul Walker has died sometimes. On November 30, 2013, Paul and his friend and business partner Roger Rodas died instantly when the Porsche they were driving to a charity event in Valencia, California, crashed and caught fire.
Investigators’ final report said that Roger was going between 80 and 93 mph when his car hit a power pole and several trees. This was found out after the accident. Paul, who was only 40 years old at the time, died from both injuries and burns. Meadow Walker, his daughter, had just turned 15 weeks before the accident.
5. Steve Irwin was a TV star and animal conservationist who was known as “The Crocodile Hunter.” Both kids and adults loved him. The Australian zookeeper became known for being able to handle some of the most dangerous animals in the wild with ease and skill. He used these interactions to teach people about the animals’ lives and environments. But on September 4, 2006, Steve died while making a documentary called “Ocean’s Deadliest.”
A stingray stabbed him “hundreds of times” in the heart (according to a cameraman who witnessed the attack). Witnesses said that Steve’s last words before he died from the stingray’s poison were “I’m dying.” The most shocking thing about Steve’s death is that stingrays don’t usually attack, even when they are scared.
This was a freak accident that has never happened before. Steve, who was 44 years old, died in 2006. He was survived by his wife Terri, daughter Bindi Irwin (pictured), and son Robert Irwin. Terri, Bindi, and Robert have all carried on Steve’s legacy by continuing to support conservation efforts and help run the Australia Zoo.
6. On March 18, 2009, British actress Natasha Richardson, who was 45 years old, died from a head injury she got while skiing just two days before. The actress, who was married to Liam Neeson, was on vacation in Canada with one of their young sons when she decided to take a beginner skiing lesson.
The teacher said that Natasha fell and hit her head near the end of the lesson, but she was in a good mood and joked about it right away. The teacher told her to go to the doctor, but she refused. After a few hours, Natasha got a terrible headache and had to be rushed to the hospital. Liam, who was making a movie in Toronto, met her there.
Liam said that Natasha’s condition had gotten much worse. “I was told that she had no brain. And when I saw this X-ray, I thought, “Wow.” But it was clear that she was on life support and other things. And I told her I loved her when I went into her room. I told her, “Sweetie, you’re not going to get out of this.” Natasha was taken to a hospital in New York on March 17, but she passed away from her injuries the next day.
7. Fans of “Star Trek” know Anton Yelchin as Chekov, the Russian math genius on the U.S.S. Enterprise. He played Chekov in a trilogy of movies that started in 2009. Anton was a rising star when, on June 19, 2016, he died in what can only be called a freak accident. He was only 27 years old.
Investigators think that Anton left his car running in his driveway when he went to the mailbox. Either he forgot to put the Jeep in park or the parking brake broke, which caused the two-ton vehicle to roll backward, crushing the actor to death against a security fence. Anton is thought to have died within a minute of being hit. Anton’s parents sued Fiat Chrysler for wrongful death after their son died in a car accident. In 2018, a deal was reached.
8. On August 25, 2001, R&B singer-turned-actress Aaliyah and eight other people got on a twin-engine Cessna in the Bahamas to fly to Miami after filming her latest music video. Shortly after takeoff, the plane went down in flames, killing everyone on board except one (the lone survivor later died from his injuries).
Investigators said the crash was caused by a broken engine, while other reports said the plane was too heavy because of all the cargo it was carrying. At the time of her death, Aaliyah was only 22 years old. She had just made her acting debut in the crime thriller “Romeo Must Die,” and she had just finished filming the fantasy thriller “Queen of the Damned.”
9. “Kung Fu” actor David Carradine died under strange circumstances. On June 3, 2009, he was found hanged in his hotel room in Bangkok. It looked like he had killed himself. Later, though, it was found that David had died by accident while he was auto-erotically asphyxiating himself.
Marina Anderson, David’s ex-wife, thinks that the actor was actually killed. She says that David “never flew solo” and that, even though he liked “kinky sex,” he always had a partner with him. She thinks that David may have gotten too much attention in Thailand and may have paid someone to be sexual with him before “something went terribly wrong.
10. When she died on August 31, 1997, Princess Diana of Wales was only 36 years old. Even though she had been divorced from Prince Charles for a year, she was still one of the most loved members of the royal family. She and her boyfriend, Egyptian billionaire Dodi Fayed, died in a terrible accident.
They were trying to get away from the paparazzi, so their car sped away and crashed in a Paris tunnel. Dodi and the driver both died right away when the car crashed. Diana was badly hurt and had to be taken to the hospital, where she soon died from a heart attack. She was survived by her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
11. Joan Rivers was 81 years old when she died on September 4, 2014, but everyone who knew her and loved her said she still had a lot of life left in her. Melissa Rivers, her daughter, says that her mother’s death was caused by mistakes made by a careless surgical team during a routine endoscopy a week before.
When Joan went into cardiac arrest during a minor operation on her throat, the team taking care of her waited 12 minutes before calling 911. During that time, the surgeon said to have “left” Joan on the table. She stayed in intensive care for a week before she died from cerebral hypoxia, which is when the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen.
12. In the 1960s and 1970s, Sonny Bono and his ex-wife Cher became well-known (the couple eventually divorced in 1975). In 1995, Sonny was elected to represent California’s 44th congressional district. Sonny went on vacation to the Heavenly Ski Resort in Nevada, which is close to Lake Tahoe, while he was in office.
On January 5, 1998, around 4:30 p.m., someone said that Sonny was missing. After two hours, his body was found by a ski patrol. The singer-turned-politician had apparently hit a tree while skiing earlier in the day, causing massive head trauma that killed him.
Cher and Sonny got divorced years ago, but at his funeral, Cher gave a tearful, heartfelt speech about how much he still meant to her. She later said that his death made her realise how much he still meant to her.
13. Natalie Wood got her start in Hollywood as a child star, and her role in the holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street” is what most people remember her for. Natalie became a good actress as an adult, and she played the lead in movies like “West Side Story” and “Rebel Without a Cause.”
Natalie’s life was cut short on November 29, 1981, when she drowned in a boating accident off the coast of California’s Catalina Island. She was only 43 years old. Her husband, Robert Wagner, co-star and friend Christopher Walken, and the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern, were all on the boat the night she drowned. Natalie’s body was found with bruises and scratches on her arms and neck. The coroner thought that these injuries happened before she drowned.
She also had alcohol and drugs in her body, so the drowning was ruled to be “accidental.” But Dennis later said in 2011 that he thought Robert was to blame for Natalie’s death. He said that he and Robert had a fight right before she fell overboard and that Robert forced him to lie to the police the night of the accident. Both Robert and Christopher say that Natalie drowning was an accident. In February 2018, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reopened the case and said that Robert was “a person of interest” in her death.
14. On July 16, 1999, the world was shocked to hear that John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bessette were missing after their single-engine plane, which John had flown from an airport in New Jersey, failed to land in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. After five days of searching hard, Navy divers found the wreckage about seven miles from the coast in the Atlantic Ocean.
John’s body was found inside the plane, while the bodies of the women were found nearby on the seabed. The crash happened because the pilot made a mistake. John probably got lost while flying at night, which caused the plane to crash into the water, killing everyone instantly.
15. Decades before Paul Walker died in a car accident, another young and handsome Hollywood star died in the same way. On September 30, 1955, James Dean was about to become one of Hollywood’s most popular leading men. He had already made three movies, but only one of them would ever be shown in theatres. He and James’s mechanic Rolf Wütherich got into James’s Porsche and sped down California Highway 46 on their way to a race in Salinas.
When the car hit another car, James broke his neck and got a lot of internal injuries that killed him right away. People think James was driving when the fatal accident happened, but an eyewitness said he saw Rolf behind the wheel right after. Rolf lived through the crash, but in 1981, he died in another one.
16. Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes filmed her own death on April 25, 2002, which was a horrible turn of events. The once-troubled star, who is best known as one-third of the hip-hop and R&B group TLC, was on a spiritual retreat in Honduras, where she was being filmed for an upcoming documentary. Lisa was driving an SUV with eight other people in it and filming herself when she lost control of it and it tipped over. She was hit in the head with something hard, and she died soon after.
VH1 showed the documentary Lisa was making five years after she died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 30. The last scene didn’t show the crash itself out of respect for her family, but it did include the sounds of Lisa and her passengers screaming.
17. Troy Gentry was half of the country music duo Montgomery Gentry and had a very successful career. On Sept. 8, 2017, he died at age 50 after he decided on a whim to take a joy ride in a helicopter in New Jersey. Eddie Montgomery, Troy’s longtime music partner and best friend, told him that they had been invited to go on a helicopter tour right before their show in Medford, New Jersey. The engine of the two-seater helicopter Troy was in broke down soon after takeoff.
The helicopter crashed into a densely wooded area, killing the pilot instantly and leaving Troy with serious injuries. He was taken to the hospital, where Eddie was with him when he died. The two had just finished recording their latest album, “Here’s to You,” which Eddie released on February 2, 2018, in honour of his friend and business partner.
18. Jenni Rivera, a famous Mexican-American singer who was known as “La Diva de la Banda” (the Diva of Banda Music), died in a terrible plane crash in Mexico on December 9, 2012. Four of her friends and the two pilots also died in the crash. One of the pilots, who was 78 years old, was “too old for the licence” he was given, according to the investigation into the crash. They also noticed that the plane was “flying unevenly,” had trouble getting up to cruising speed, and had had problems in the past that the owner didn’t report.
19. On October 20, 1977, three members of the popular 1970s rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd died when a plane they chartered from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, crashed in Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant (right), Steve Gaines (centre), and his sister, backup singer Cassie Gaines, were killed (not pictured). The pilot and co-pilot also died in the crash, as did Dean Kilpatrick, who was the band’s assistant road manager (also not pictured). Twenty other people on the plane survived the crash, including original member Gary Rossington (left).
20. John Denver, a folk music legend famous for songs like “Rocky Mountain High” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” died on October 12, 1997, when the plane he was flying in California ran out of gas and crashed into Monterey Bay. The singer was only 53 years old, but he had been flying for years and had even been in an accident in 1989, which he had lived through. Authorities said that John was flying an experimental fibreglass plane that was made just for him. At the time, he was “practising takeoff and landing” near his home on the Monterey Peninsula.
21. Grace Kelly was a famous movie star who became the Princess of Monaco. She died too soon on September 14, 1982, when she was only 52 years old. The former actress was driving Princess Stephanie to Paris to start school when she missed a sharp turn on a narrow road, causing their car to go off the edge and fall more than 100 feet.
Grace and Stephanie lived through the first crash and were taken to the hospital, but Grace had a huge brain bleed and died there. Stephanie was able to get better, but she wouldn’t talk about the accident, not even with her family, until 1989, when she had gone to therapy to deal with the trauma.
22. Glenn Miller’s disappearance and supposed death have become one of the most interesting Hollywood mysteries to date. In 1942, when he was at the top of his career, the famous performer joined the Army because he thought it was his patriotic duty. Glenn was put in charge of the Army Air Force Band because he was good at music.
The band went to different military bases in Europe to play for the troops. On December 15, 1944, Glenn needed to get from England to Paris for a show, so Lt. Col. Norman Baessell gave him a ride. Even though their pilot wasn’t allowed to fly because of the thick fog and freezing temperatures, the Lt. Col. told him to go anyway.
This bad choice led an inexperienced pilot to fly a small plane that wasn’t well-equipped over the English Channel, where the fuel intake froze and caused the plane to crash into the icy water, killing everyone on board. The Army couldn’t find Glenn’s body, so they didn’t tell anyone about his death until December 24. This led to a lot of crazy theories, like the one that Glenn was part of a secret plot to get rid of Hitler.
23. Michael Hutchence was the face of the Australian rock band INXS. When their album “Listen Like Thieves” came out in 1985, it made them famous all over the world. The Grammy-nominated group was hit hard when Michael, 37, was found dead and naked in his Sydney hotel room on November 22, 1997.
He had apparently been hanged. At first, the authorities thought Michael, who was being treated for depression, had killed himself. However, Michael’s partner, Paula Yates, thought the rock star had died accidentally while auto-erotic asphyxiation while masturbating (a technique in which oxygen is restricted to heighten sexual pleasure). Paula, who later died of a heroin overdose, said that the two of them had done the same kinds of sexual things while they were together.
24. Stevie Ray Vaughan of the band Double Trouble is thought to be one of the best blues guitarists in the country. He is credited with bringing back the blues in the 1980s. Stevie Ray was only 35 years old when he and four other people died in a helicopter crash on August 27, 1990.
They were on their way to Chicago for a show with other musicians in Eric Clapton’s group. Investigators found that shortly after takeoff, the helicopter pilot, Jeff Brown, made a sharp turn to the left. This caused the helicopter to crash into a ski slope, killing everyone on board instantly.
25. Many people call February 3, 1959, “the day the music died,” because three talented musicians died in a small plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa, on that day. J.P. Richardson, also known as “The Big Bopper,” Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens were all on their way to Fargo, North Dakota, on their way to Moorhead, Minnesota, where they were going to perform as part of their Winter Dance Party tour.
Buddy was tired of taking a bus that didn’t have heat, so he chartered a plane and asked his friends Ritchie and J.P. to come with him. The plane crashed early in the morning just a few miles from where it took off. The pilot, who also died, was blamed for the crash at first, but in February 2015, the case was reopened after a retired pilot said that other things, like the weight of the cargo, problems with the rudder, and ice on the carburetor induction, could have been to blame.
26. If you’ve ever cried while singing along to “Hallelujah,” you probably heard the version that singer, songwriter, and musician Jeff Buckley recorded in 1994. After he put out his first album, the music star gained a cult-like following.
On May 29, 1997, when he was in Nashville, he made the fateful decision to swim in the Mississippi River. Jeff drowned when a boat went by and made a strong current that pulled him under. He was 30. His body wasn’t found for another six days. “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk,” his second record, came out in 1998. It had songs that Jeff was working on when he passed away.
27. Charmayne Maxwell’s death on February 28, 2015, is so sad and unbelievable that we are all thinking twice about drinking wine from a glass. The American-Guyanese singer, who was best known for her work with the girl group Brownstone in the 1990s, died in her Los Angeles home after she fell backward and broke her wine glass.
Coroners think the glass broke right as Charmayne fell, causing two fatal puncture wounds in the back of her neck. Her husband, record producer Carsten Soulshock, found her and took her to the hospital right away. She passed away on the way, leaving Carsten and their 10-year-old son, Nicolaj, behind.
