Jon-Erik Hexum : What really happened?

What really happened?

There's a few different versions of what happened when Jon Erik shot himself, I've never come across any interviews with crew members apart from the guy on E!'s mysteries and scandals, so was Jon Erik alone or (as the IMDb trivia page for 'cover up' says) handing the gun over to the prop guy when the accident happened? Had he just woken up or had he just been resting on the bed but not asleep? Was he playing with the blanks? Did anyone actually witness his shooting? I find it hard to believe that Jon Erik wouldn't know the dangers of firing a blank into his head, it's not like this was his first experience with blanks/prop guns

Re: What really happened?

see my post it was a suicide- confirmed

Re: What really happened?

kaydie-fee, don't listen to Sue. She's a troll, looking for attention. How do I know that? She claims she gets her info from some friend who "blew" Jon-Erik way back when. My eyes are rolling so far back in my head from that, I can see my brain.

It wasn't a suicide. Well, let me rephrase that: in technical terms only, it was a suicide in that he took his own life, but he didn't intentionally try to kill himself.

First off, he wasn't suicidal. Everyone that knew him knew he was a happy guy, loved life, and was always a friend they could count on. In researching things for my website, I've talked to tons of people who knew him, from family, to friends, to co-workers, even the people he grew up with in Tenafly, that remained lifelong friends. Every one of them unanimously say he was NOT suicidal. That wasn't him at all. And seriously, who tries to kill themselves with a prop gun? What an absurd way to go. And he'd never do it on a set filled with tons of people who would have to see/hear what happened and deal with the aftermath. And that includes his beloved mother, who was often on-set while he worked.

When a prop gun is loaded for a shot, the weapon is kept locked up until the scene calling for the gun requires it be brought out and used. In normal situations, a highly trained weapons master is the one who handles those guns, and the moment the scene is finished, the gun is taken away (by the same weapons expert) and locked up until it's needed again. That's standard procedure on any TV/movie set.

A source (who is also a weapons expert) claims the day of the accident, the weapons expert was sent home early, in a budget conscious move. That day the gun was handled by an uneducated prop guy, who didn't remove the gun when the scene was finished, but instead left it out on a bedside table. HUGE no-no in the industry. (Gee, could that be why his family was able to sue CBS/Fox over the accident? Makes you wonder, doesn't it? They won, by the way. An undisclosed sum of money. Good for them. Hardly replaces JEH, but I hope it made their life easier somehow, if even just a little bit.)

Yes, he knew prop guns were dangerous. He'd used them repeatedly while filming both Voyagers and Cover Up. Contrary to some rumors, Jon-Erik wasn't a meathead, he was a very intelligent guy (he graduated with a degree in Philosophy). He knew the dangers associated with it.

If you think about his life right before the accident, he was working on a show that kept him there some days for 10-12 hours at a time, even 14-16 hours. That's a long work day. At the time he was suffering from insomnia. Terribly so. All you need to do is Google sleep deprivation to see what lack of sleep will do to a person. If I miss two night's sleep I get rummy, three and I refuse to even drive my car, for fear I'll cause an accident. If he was sleep deprived for a long period of time, anything could happen.

While he was filming Cover Up, he was also traveling extensively to promote 238 The Bear, a movie he was largely cut out of. And at the same time he was traveling back and forth to Las Vegas to train for the Circus of the Stars. A schedule like that would kill the average person.

According to the story, there had been many delays that day on set. Stupid delays, Cover Up was basically a Mickey Mouse operation from the get-go. He was frustrated, he needed to wrap up shooting so he could catch his plane to Vegas for Circus of the Stars. He laid down on the prop bed to take a nap, and was awakened to more delays. Now, remember t 5b4 hat prop gun that was loaded, and left out? Yeah. I'm thinking he put his trust in the prop guy (who was normally a weapons master) to do his job properly, and probably thought the loaded gun was locked up, as it usually was. Being as exhausted as he was, sleep deprived if you will, and frustrated at yet another delay, I bet he picked up the gun, thinking it was the unloaded gun that he worked with day after day on the set, put it to his head in utter frustration and pulled the trigger, much like we'd do as a joke with our finger pointed at our head, "Just shoot me now." Except it wasn't his unloaded gun, it was the loaded prop that was left out and shouldn't have been. Add it all together and I bet that's a pretty accurate picture of what went down that day.

They say no one else was in the room when it happened, although there were people there moments after the accident.

Now, is that to say that's exactly what happened that day? No. I wasn't there, I don't know for sure. But that would be my best guess, figuring in everything I told you above. But I doubt any of us will ever know for absolute certainty what happened, no one beyond Jon-Erik and God Himself.

I have thought about it a lot over the years. And the best answer for me is one that came from one of his dearest friends: It was an anomaly. No other way to describe it than that.

And it wasn't a standard suicide. Not by a long shot. 2000

If you want more info on what happened, it's all written up on my website, including facts about prop guns, and blanks, and compares what happened to Jon-Erik with what happened to Brandon Lee. Interesting stuff, I know I learned a lot when I did my research.

Hope that helps.

*****Visit my website for Jon-Erik Hexum at TenaflyGuy.com!*****

Re: What really happened?

Thank you VBliss, very interesting post especially the info on his exhausting schedule - he was pushing himself much too far imo.
I've always thought the reports of him not knowing that blank bullets can kill if you fire them into your head were a load of crap, he wasn't an idiot and as I said in my other post, he'd worked with blanks before.
It seemed like some people in the media were trying to push a ' hunky but brainless ' stereotype onto Jon-Erik and implying he was too stupid to live. Him thinking the gun wasn't loaded with any kind of bullets makes the most sense, he was probably just playing around and jokingly put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, it's sad that some tiny spur of the moment thing like that ended the way it did, it's also shameful that a few years later very similar mistakes were made and someone else died (I think the gun/prop people were even more reckless in that instance) no lessons learnt.

Re: What really happened?

Thank you for posting this. Apologies for my ignorance but can you explain what a blank round is and how it might kill or injure a person please? Thank you. (No guns allowed in my country)

Re: What really happened?

A blank is a regular bullet shell or case (the flat end of a bullet) that holds the gunpowder. Instead of a projectile (the pointy end of a bullet) a blank just has a paper and/or cotton wad to hold the gunpowder in place. There's enough gunpowder to make a realistically loud bang. This is what is fired from starter pistols in old movies of Olympic races.

The paper/cotton wadding usually burns up very quickly and starter pistols usually have a solid bar for a barrel so the wadding has nowhere to go. A prop gun has a hollow barr 1908 el like a real gun (and often is a real gun) and the small amount of wadding traveled at tremendous speed through the barrel and struck Mr. Hexum's head. It would have slowed very quickly so he must have had the gun pretty close to his head. All accounts state that his skull was cracked and he suffered brain damage as a result. The wadding probably did not actually penetrate very far at all.
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