Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
New questions are being asked now nearly a month after Hollywood legend gene hackman and his wife betsy arakawa hackman were were found dead inside their santa fe new mexico home back on february 26th .
Two weeks after the discovery, police and investigators released a timeline of their deaths. Now, nearly a month after they were found dead, shocking twists and turns about the timeline of their deaths and what really happened leading up to — and after — the discovery are being released
if you rembember it was on that day a contractor came to their house and eventually deputies found hackman and arakawa dead inside the home.
one of their dogs was also found dead in a confined space.
arakawa was in the bathroom and appeared to have fallen suddenly because there was a space heater on the ground with her that looked to have fallen.
pills were scattered on the counter , the 95 year old hackman was found dead with sunglasses and a walking cane nearby .
from the start of the santa fe county sheriff’s office investigation, they said there were no signs of foul play,but it was a mystery as how they died and just how long they were dead for .
the couple was very private , they lived in a $ 3.3 million home in santa fe that was secluded ,that had no security cameras .
eventually officer’s discovered that hackman’s pacemaker recorded it’s last event on february 18 , the medical examiner said that hackman died of combination of cardiovscular disease and alzheimer’s
as far as arakawa hackman , medical examiner found that she had a rare but dangerous infectious disease called hantavirus that’s carried by rodents and had similar sypmtoms initially as the flue .
the departement of health in new mexico says there have only been 156 cases of this in the last 50 years in the state but more than 4 % of those cases are fatal.
Officials initially said they believed Arakawa died on 11 February and Hackman died one week later.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office now says they have confirmed that Arakawa made multiple calls to a health clinic on 12 February for medical treatment, which the clinic told BBC she never was able to receive.
The sheriff’s office said they learned of the calls when they received cell phone data from her phone.
They said there were three calls made that morning to Cloudberry Health, a personalized concierge medical practice in the area. She received a fourth call, also from the clinic.
The sheriff’s office noted it never reported an official date of death for her and said that initially they’d stated that Arakawa’s last known activity was on 11 February.
Authorities say she’d exchanged emails with a massage therapist and visited a grocery store, pharmacy and a pet store. Garage clicker data showed she returned home around 5:15 p.m. that day.
it turns out the phone data that came back shows that she actually died the next day a day later than police originally reported.
it showed that arakawa hackman mad multiple phone calls to the local health clinic on the 12th , seeking care for the disease that would kill her later that day according to deputies.
the BBC spoke with the head of cloudberry health who said that arakawa talked of congestion but didn’t mention breathing issues or chest pain.
arakawa had scheduled an appointment for the 12th but she canceled on the 10th saying that she needed to care for her husband gene hackman .
this means that gene hackman still spent days inside that house with his wife’s dead body in the bathromm.
the medical examiner did say healthwise hackman was in rough shape after she examined his body .
as for the dog ,according to a report , he didn’t die of an infection like arakawa did but a lack of food and water , the dog recently had a procedure and was confined to a carrier.
the couple had two other dogs that were found alive on the property and they’ve both been reportedly taken to a local shelter for care.
now there are questions about what will happen to Gene hackman’s estate, one that ‘s been built up over a career of 40 years in hollywood .
accroding to Entertainment weekly that estate is worth $80 million and hackman left it all to his wife.
hackman has three adult children from a previous marriage;
65 year old christopher, 63 year old elizabeth, and 58 year old leslie.
none of them are listed as beneficialaries in hackman’s will which was reportedly signed in 2005.
even with the timeline of arakawa dying 24 hours after what was first thought that doesn’t change the reality that she died before gene hackman did raising the question of who’s entitled to this fortune.
hackman did appoint his former attroney as the person who would be in charge of this trust if betsy arakawa died but that person died in 2019.
so it was passed on to their successor an attorney named julia peters who is now representing the estate in court.
according to entertainment weekly,
betsy’s will says if hackman doesn’t outlive her by 90 days after her death the estate is directed to be administered to a quote charitable trust who have achieve purposes beneficial to the community.
consistent with the charitable preferences and interests expressed or indicated by my spouse and me during our lifetimes.”
the attorney representing the trust did file documents in court listing hackman’s adult children as air’s to the trust.
now we know that hackman’s children were not in touch with their dad regularly in his final days as he is believed to have been dead for a week until a contractor found him and betsy in the home.
in an interview with the daily mail hackman’s daughter leslie said that she and her dad were close but she hadn’t spoken with him for a couple of months.
hackman’s son christopher who is now in his 60s hasn’t spoken to the press since his father’s death.but TMZ is reporting, he did hire a prominent california trust and estate attorney .
there are also questions abou whether the public will see what deputies saw on that day they discovered gene hackman and betsy arakawa had died .
the attorny for hackman’s trust filed a motion to restrict body cam video and photographs,the estate was granted a tempory restraining order limiting the desclosure of pictures or videos, showing the couple’s bodies and interior of their home on that day.it also limits the disclosure of autopsy reports or death investigation reports.
te trust argues that the hackmans have a right to privacy and laced a lot of value on being out of the public eye in recent hears.
a hearing is set for march 31 st to dive mor into that issue .