It may be very hard to pinpoint the exact times of death for Gene Hackman and his wife. After the bodies of Gene, 95, and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 65, were found in that state on February 26 at their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home after the couple had been cut off from friends and family for several days.
An expert has revealed that it becomes more challenging to place a time on death once a body has undergone significant decomposition, particularly when mummification occurs.
Mummification can make it impossible to pinpoint the precise time of death, according to Dr. James Gill, Connecticut’s Chief Medical Examiner.
“There’s nothing to be able to distinguish the two deaths timewise once you get to that mummification stage,” he told People. According to the expert, environmental elements like heat and dryness can hasten decomposition, making it more difficult to determine the cause and time of death.
“Mummification will typically occur more quickly in dry environments than in non-dry environments,” he stated. Betsy, Gene’s wife, was discovered on their home’s bathroom floor next to a space heater, and the actor was subsequently located in the mudroom.
The remains appeared to have been deceased for at least ten days prior to their discovery, and both displayed indications of severe decomposition.
At the site, a family dog was also discovered dead. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist who also talked to People, noted that after decomposition has begun, it’s very hard to pinpoint the exact moment of death.
“It’s much harder to do once the body is decomposed,” she said. According to the expert, early markers such as body temperature and rigor mortis are useful in the early phases of determining a time of death but become unreliable as decomposition advances.
In those situations, investigators are forced to depend more on circumstantial evidence, such as the last time the deceased was seen alive or the time that the house started to accumulate mail.
Although carbon monoxide poisoning has been ruled out as the cause of Gene and Betsy’s deaths, the cause of the couple’s deaths is still being investigated.
