It’s possible that Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were deceased for “days or weeks” before they were discovered dead at their Santa Fe mansion earlier this week.
The Santa Fe County sheriff, Adan Mendoza, says as much.
Even with the assistance of the medical investigator’s office, creating a timeline is quite challenging, he stated on this morning’s Today show.
“Just by looking at their body and other body-related evidence, it looked like they had been dead for a few days or even a few weeks.”
A search warrant that was made public yesterday verified that the two had been discovered “mummified,” which is why this update was made.
Due to the constantly evolving nature of the case, the terrible death of the couple and their German Shepard has shocked the entertainment field.
Although the cause of death is not yet known to the public, authorities have addressed the widely held belief that they might have perished from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Additionally, Santa Fe Fire Chief Brian Moya stated on Today that they have not yet ruled out this as a cause of death. Hackman’s daughter told TMZ that she thought this might have contributed to their death.
But according to a search warrant issued yesterday, there were “no signs of a gas leak” and the situation was “suspicious enough” to call for a search.
‘Partially mummified’ and in similar degrees of decomposition, Hackman and Arakawa were discovered in opposite rooms.
One of their dogs had also passed away, but the other two pets had survived, and the front door had been left open.
Arakawa’s body was discovered in the bathroom, and the sheriff of Santa Fe said that the tablets found there were “very important evidence.”
He stated on the show earlier today: “I am pretty confident that there is no foul play just based on the lack of evidence of foul play, but of course, we’re not ruling anything out.”
He continued by saying, “That information was collected, that information was passed to the office of the medical investigator to help them make a determination of the ‘important evidence’ of the pills found next to her body.”
Therefore, we’re focusing on that in particular as well as any further drugs that might have been in the house. That is a cause for concern.
Two maintenance workers who claimed to have not seen the pair for two weeks before their deaths discovered them.
In a farewell interview with Empire Magazine, Hackman, who had been retired from acting since 2004, stated: “A stress test I took in New York was actually the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“My heart wasn’t in the condition where I should be putting it under any stress,” the doctor said.