What We Know So Far About The Deaths Of Gene Hackman And Betsy Arakawa
The Hollywood icon, his classical pianist wife and one of their three dogs were all found dead under mysterious circumstances in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home.
Investigators on Friday pored over evidence found around the partially mummified bodies of Oscar-winner Gene Hackman and his wife at their New Mexico home as officials awaited the results of autopsies.
A maintenance worker reported the deaths of Hackman, 95, and Betsy Arakawa, 65, on Wednesday, according to a Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office search warrant affidavit. Investigators are still working to determine what caused the deaths, though they said they don’t suspect foul play.
Hackman, a Hollywood icon, won two Oscars during a storied career in which he played an array of heroes and villains in films including “The French Connection,” “Hoosiers” and “Superman” from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.
Hackman and his wife apparently had been dead for days or even a couple of weeks when investigators found their bodies while searching the couple’s Santa Fe home on Wednesday, authorities said.
Their bodies were decomposing, with mummification in Arakawa’s hands and feet, according to the search warrant affidavit. Hackman’s body showed similar signs, it said. Hackman’s body was found in the home’s entryway and Arakawa’s was found in a bathroom.
Dr. Philip Keen, the retired chief medical examiner in Maricopa County, Arizona, said it’s not rare for a body to mummify.
The rate of mummification depends on the amount of moisture in the air, along with factors like altitude and body type, Keen said. Santa Fe is in the driest region of the U.S. at an elevation of nearly 7,200 feet (2,194 meters).
Still, Keen said you can’t draw conclusions about the time of death based on mummification: “It doesn’t tell you much.”
The search warrant affidavit said a maintenance worker called 911 after spotting the bodies at the couple’s home. He reported the home’s front door was open when he arrived to do routine work, a detective wrote.
In a recording of the 911 call, though, the worker said he could see Arakawa lying on the floor through a window but was unable to get inside.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza told NBC’s “Today” show that investigators were trying to sort out conflicting stories about the doors. He said several doors were unlocked and a rear door was open, which allowed two dogs that survived to go in and out. He also said he thinks the front door was closed but unlocked.
A dead German shepherd was found in a kennel near Arakawa, Mendoza said Thursday.
No foul play was suspected, authorities said, though investigators wrote in the warrant that they thought the deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.”
The New Mexico Gas Co. tested gas lines at the home but didn’t find any signs of problems at the time, according to the warrant.
An investigator noted people may not show signs of poisoning if they are exposed to gas leaks or carbon monoxide, but that there weren’t signs of a leak at the home.
Autopsy results were still pending Friday.
Hackman appeared in a broad range of movie roles dating back to 1961, when he debuted in “Mad Dog Coll.” Through the next four decades, his roles including arch nemesis Lex Luthor in the “Superman” movies and the iconic coach in “Hoosiers” helped put Hackman in the spotlight.
He was a five-time Oscar nominee who won best actor in a leading role for “The French Connection” in 1972 and best actor in a supporting role for “Unforgiven” two decades later. He also won praise for his role as a coach finding redemption in the sentimental favorite “Hoosiers.”
Hackman demurred from the pomp of celebrity and was considered an actor’s actor who focused on the job and not his image, dodging social circuit appearances beyond some award ceremonies.
As a boy, films offered Hackman an escape from a tumultuous home life with an abusive father who left the family when Hackman was 13.
Sympathy and admiration for Hackman poured in from Hollywood legends including director Francis Ford Coppola, actor-director Clint Eastwood and actor Bill Murray.
Murray worked with Hackman on director Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Hackman gave young directors such as Anderson a hard time but brought skill to the set, Murray said.
“I watched him once do, like, 25 takes where he did it perfectly with an actor who kept blowing it every single time,” Murray told The Associated Press. “He was a great one. He was a great actor.”
Actor Cary Elwes called Hackman a “force of nature.”
“Growing up on his movies was an absolute thrill for me,” Elwes said on Instagram. “To observe his remarkable facility and humanity in every role was something to behold.”
Everything you ever wanted to learn about acting can be found in any of Hackman’s performances, actor Steve Toussaint posted on Instagram.
”’The French Connection.’ ‘Crimson Tide,’ ‘The Conversation.’ Gosh! I could go on,” Toussaint wrote.
Arakawa was born in Hawaii in December 1959 and grew up in Honolulu. She studied piano and, as an 11-year-old sixth grader, performed in youth concerts in front of thousands of students at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported in 1971.
Arakawa attended the University of Southern California from 1981 through 1983, the university said in an email.
While in Los Angeles, she was a cheerleader for the Aztecs, a professional soccer team in the North American Soccer League, and worked as a production assistant on the television game show “Card Sharks,” the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported in 1981.
The classically trained pianist met Hackman while working part-time at a California gym in the mid-1980s. They soon moved in together and relocated to Santa Fe by the end of the decade.
Arakawa was vice president of Pandora’s, a home decor and furnishing store in Santa Fe, according to New Mexico business records.
Their Pueblo revival home, a style typical in the area, sits on a hill in a gated with views of the Rocky Mountains far from Hollywood. The area is known as a preferred location among artists and a retreat for celebrities.
The home was featured in a 1990 article by Architectural Digest. The four-bedroom, 8,700-square-foot (808-square-meter) structure on 6 acres (2.4 hectares) had an estimated market value of a little over $4 million, according to Santa Fe County property tax records.
Hackman often was seen around the historic state capital. His hobbies included painting, deep-sea diving and, later in life, writing novels. The couple enjoyed watching DVDs that Arakawa would rent, Hackman told the film magazine Empire in a 2009 interview.
In his later years, Hackman was seen far less in public. Papers reported sightings of Hackman in mundane scenarios, such as when The New York Post detailed the former actor pumping gas and getting a chicken sandwich at Wendy’s in 2023.
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Billeaud reported from Phoenix. Associated Press reporters Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and contributed to this report.
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