March
30,1993
(The day before he died at 13.04)
Day 50 of the shoot started later than planned. The cast and crew
had come to work with only eight hours of break time from the previous day's shoot.
The scene was a flashback, where Eric is
murdered as he walks in on a gang, and his girlfriend, Shelly beaten and raped.
Brandon was called onto the soundstage at a little past midnight.
Eric would enter the flat as T-Bird and Funboy were in the process of assaulting
Shelly. Carrying only a bag of groceries, Eric would open the door only for Funboy to
pull out his pistol and shoot Eric. In reality, it was a simple scene to film
in, which an explosive device was hidden inside the grocery bag and then detonated to simulate the bullet from
Funboy's gun. The actors ran through rehearsal, then the crew was ready to shoot. The scene
was played out exactly as rehearsed. Funboy, T-Bird and Shelly, Eric walking through the door surprising
the assailants. Funboy pulling out his pistol and firing.
A deafening bang echoed around the set as Brandon supposedly detonated the
device hidden inside his bag of groceries and then on cue, doubling over, staggering and
finally tumbling to the ground. Brandon lay still, his head wedged against the door, his feet in
front of the camera's.
Only one of the technicians admit hearing a weak plea from Brandon... "cut, cut,
somebody please say cut" ...Things finally come to a halt-then and only then-did
everyone realize that something was wrong. James Moyer was the prop-master
on the set, but he was sent home early, as it was thought he wasn't needed. The
metal tip off one of the dummy bullets, had somehow pulled loose from its brass
casing. When the dummies were unloaded and replaced with blanks, the metal tip
remained in the barrel of the gun pointed at Brandon. This attached
itself to one of the blanks, and was then like a real bullet. If the gun had
have been checked and cleaned, the accident might not have happened.
There was a hole in Brandon's abdomen, the size of a small coin. As one of the
crew members later recalled, "I'll never forget what it looked like-it was eye-shaped,
about an inch bellow his belly button on his right side. "Brandon's heart reportedly stopped on the
30-minute drive to New Hannover Medical Center. Surgeon, Dr Warren McMurry tried to
stop the
bleeding, but after a five-hour operation, there was little improvement in Brandon's
condition. McMurry stated, "There was so much blood loss. It wouldn't clot".
McMurry told a small group of the crew people who had followed the ambulance to the hospital that there was
small object lodged against Brandon's spine. It had severed one major artery and
caused damage to several major organs. An autopsy conducted on Brandon's body after it had been
flown to Jacksonville, revealed a .44 caliber bullet had indeed been found lodged against
his spine.
On April 3,1993 Brandon's body was flown to Seattle where he is buried next to
his father, in Lake View Cemetery.