A week has passed since the unexplained death of Hollywood icon Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa at their New Mexico residence. However, there are more questions than answers following the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office inquiry.
Last Wednesday, two maintenance personnel found the couple’s mummified corpses in different parts of their $3.8 million Santa Fe home.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the actor, 95, and his 65-year-old pianist wife most likely passed away nine days prior to their remains being found, although their cause of death has not been made public.
Officials believe Hackman may have fallen since he was found laying on the floor of a mud room off the kitchen with his cane and sunglasses close by.
In the bathroom, his wife was discovered lying on her side with a space heater beside her head. Prescription medications that were not identifiable were scattered on a neighboring countertop.
Both have not been given a cause of death, and the strange and occasionally contradictory bits of information just serve to heighten curiosity about the terrible mystery.
To what extent are the deaths’suspicious’?
The inquiry has been hampered and the mystery has been heightened by uncertainty over whether the couple’s deaths were “suspicious.” Several newspapers have reported the deaths of Hackman and Arakawa as such.
Adan Mendoza, the sheriff for Santa Fe County, said there were no indications of foul play, but he hasn’t ruled it out entirely. The’suspicious’ line is taken from Santa Fe County Detective Roy Arndt’s search warrant request, which he submitted early on February 27.
The day after Hackman and Betsy were discovered dead, that is. Ardnt described the findings of deputies Joshua Thomas and Javier Baron, who were summoned to the Hackman residence after two maintenance personnel noticed the deaths.
