In 1977, Maryann Gray was driving down a country road when she accidentally ran over a boy, killing him. She spoke with Inside Edition about how that incident changed her life and how the fatal "Rust" shooting could change Baldwin's, too.
Maryann Gray is living with the shame and guilt of accidentally killing someone, just like Alec Baldwin.
In 1977, Gray was driving down a narrow country road outside Oxford, Ohio, going the speed limit of 45 miles per hour. All of a sudden, she says she saw a pale flash and felt a bump. She had hit and killed an 8-year-old boy named Brian, who ran into the street to get the mail.
“I was truly shocked. I moved back and forth between great grief and a kind of disbelief feeling, almost outside myself. And also a lot of fear,” Gray told Inside Edition. She was only 22 years old at the time.
Forty-four years later, she still struggles to find joy in life and never had children of her own.
“I believed that I had taken a child from his mother and that part of my own punishment was that I could not enjoy my own children as a result. I also was very frightened that I didn't trust myself to keep a child safe,” Gray said.
Each year, more than 300,000 accidental killings take place, with most due to car accidents.
The deaths include 6,700 pedestrians who are run over by a car and 450 people who lose their lives due to the accidental discharge of a firearm, like cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who died a week ago after the fatal “Rust” shooting.
Gray says no matter the outcome of the investigation, Baldwin will be a changed man.
“He's on a journey. This is not something that goes away ever. He's on a journey to find a way to honor the memory of Ms. Hutchins. How can he best honor her memory in the way he chooses to live going forward?” Gray said.
A law firm has confirmed that they have been hired by the producers of “Rust” to conduct their own investigation into what went wrong.
