Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, appeared to have been dead at least several days before their bodies were discovered, authorities have said.
Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 63, were found dead in their Santa Fe home on Wednesday, along with one of their pet dogs.
Arakawa’s body “showed obvious signs of death, body decomposition, bloating in her face and mummification in both hands and feet,” according to a search warrant. Hackman’s body was found in a “similar and consistent” condition.
While Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza initially said that foul play was not suspected, a search warrant affidavit has since ruled their deaths “suspicious” enough to require further investigation.
Speaking about the ongoing investigation on Friday’s episode of the Today show, Mendoza disclosed that they are trying to piece together a timeline of events, but it’s been a “challenge” as the couple were “very private individuals and a private family.”
“It’s very difficult to put a timeline together even with the help of the office of the medical investigator,” he said. “Just based on their body and other evidence on the body, it looked — it appears [that they were deceased for] several days, even up to a couple of weeks.”
Arakawa, a classical pianist, was found in a bathroom with an open pill bottle and medication scattered nearby. The dead dog, a German Shepherd, was 10-15 feet from Arakawa, in a closet in the bathroom. Hackman, however, was discovered on the ground near the kitchen’s mudroom. A cane and sunglasses were found on the ground nearby.
Mendoza said that it was “difficult to determine” whether the two died around the same time.
“There’s no indication that anybody was moving about the house or doing anything different, so it’s very hard to determine if they both passed at the same time or how close they passed together,” he added. “We’re trying to put that information together… and I think the autopsy report is going to be key to this investigator.”
Mendoza was joined by Santa Fe Fire Chief Brian Moya, who further shared that because the couple was found “several days” after their deaths, a gas leak could’ve “possibly” played a factor.
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“That was a home with natural gas in it, so it could have [played a factor in their deaths],” Moya said. “There’s a lot of unanswered [questions] there. When we arrived, we made sure our people as well as the sheriff were safe, and there was nothing that we found. We also went back again yesterday to do another round of searches … and we didn’t find anything as well.”
Hackman’s daughter Elizabeth previously spoke out about her father’s death, speculating that carbon monoxide poisoning could have been the cause.
Mendoza went on to note that the pill bottle found near Arakawa is “obviously very important evidence.”
“We’re looking at that specifically and other medications that were possibly in the residence. So that is something of concern,” he said.
Mendoza added that he was confident “foul play” was not involved “based on the lack of evidence.” However, he did acknowledge that investigators “are not ruling that out.”
“I think the autopsy results, the official results are going to help steer us in the right direction,” Mendoza said. “The autopsy is key. That’s going to take some time, so I hope a little bit of patience on the family’s part, on everybody’s part, so we can have some answers into these deaths.”
