When police discovered the bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa in February, the Santa Fe sheriff’s office did too much to minimize the situation initially. The sheriff basically spent the first 24 hours shrugging off calls to investigate and insisting that there was nothing suspicious about their deaths. Soon enough, the sheriff’s office announced a full investigation of what they now determined to be “suspicious” deaths. Two Fridays ago, the sheriff announced the results of their investigation, which is that Arakawa passed away on February 11th from the hantavirus, and Hackman passed away one week later from heart failure. Well, looks like the investigation was incomplete – they missed the fact that Arakawa was still alive on Feb. 12, and that she called a medical service.
New details have emerged in the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa Hackman that are shifting the timeline of events.
According to ABC News, officials are now saying that Betsy called a medical service the morning after she was previously thought to have died. The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that during the early hours of Feb. 12, Betsy called Cloudberry, a medical concierge service that provides credentialed doctors to patients seeking help. Daily Mail reportedly spoke to a doctor from Cloudberry who confirmed Betsy contacted their office on Feb. 12.
Betsy was previously believed to have died Feb. 11, with her cause of death determined to be Hantavirus, a rare flu-like virus transmitted through rodent droppings, according to Heather Jarrell, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner. She was last seen publicly that same day, Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza confirmed.
“That would indicate to me that she was seeking medical advice or medical help and may have not been feeling well,” Mendoza told Good Morning America of the revelation March 17.
Good Morning America also reached out to Cloudberry, who confirmed that Betsy contacted them to inquire about “esoteric treatment” that morning. They further noted that there were no signs of breathing issues or distress, and the office returned her call twice, but never heard back.
The Hackmans were both found dead in their home on Feb. 26, with their bodies in advanced states of decomposition. A pest control worker, who stopped by the couple’s home and grew suspicious after they didn’t answer the door, called a neighborhood security officer who coordinated with authorities to make the discovery.
Yeah, it’s likely that Arakawa passed away on February 12th, one day later than initially believed. But this kind of mistake doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in the Santa Fe sheriff’s department, that they completely missed this phone call. Did they just… not look at the phone records at all? It would also be interesting to learn about who tried to contact Arakawa and Hackman in that awful two-week period in February before their remains were found. I still find it so hard to believe that this pest control worker was the only person who stopped by the house in over two weeks.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
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- Santa Fe, NM – The actor Gene Hackman (95) and his Wife Betsy Arakawa (63) were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The authorities said an investigation was on going. Pictured: Gene Hackman BACKGRID USA 27 FEBRUARY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Santa Fe, NM – The actor Gene Hackman (95) and his Wife Betsy Arakawa (63) were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The authorities said an investigation was on going. Pictured: Gene Hackman, Betsy Arakawa BACKGRID USA 27 FEBRUARY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Santa Fe, NM – The actor Gene Hackman (95) and his Wife Betsy Arakawa (63) were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The authorities said an investigation was on going. Pictured: Gene Hackman, Betsy Arakawa BACKGRID USA 27 FEBRUARY 2025 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
I feel like everybody else watched a different press conference than I did. They never said she died on the 11th. They said that was the last day she was known to be alive but that they still had to get phone records. I came away with the clear understanding that her date of death was unknown, could have been as early as the 11th but we’d know more once the phone data was received. I was surprised when I saw everyone running with her death being on the 11th because that is not what they said.
Inaccurate reporting by the media. What a shock! (s)
Thank you for that clarification!
It doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in the medical concierge service, either.
If someone who phoned for medical treatment can never be reached back, that should be cause for inmediate concern and a wellness check is in order. Hanta kills very fast, but both her chances and Gene’s would have improved 10x had she received inmediate medical attention.
Arakawa was not exactly a young person and home accidents happen all the time. No matter her good intentions, it was irresponsible on her side not having a backup plan for an eventuality where she was left incapacitated. Knowing she was fully responsible for another human being, she asked for information on ‘esoteric medicine’ when feeling sick enough to do more than swallowing an advil, instead of calling for a doctor visit asap. That could put under question whether she was still mentally fit to be a caregiver, as an ability that isolation, Gene’s condition and their family dynamics must have challenged substantially.
You’re right – it seems irresponsible, especially if finances weren’t an issue. We kept my mother at home as long as possible because we couldn’t afford the $450 a day for the nursing home. But we had home hospice care that was paid for by Medicare and it was such a relief to have a regular NP, a home health aid and all prescriptions and supplies delivered to the house.
You would think she would at least have people coming in to help with cleaning, if not cooking.
Well, I have lived in Santa Fe for more than 30 years. I’ve never been impressed with the police department and how it operates. There is more to say about what I’ve observed in general about how things work here. It has been interesting to observe over time.
I wanted to add that it seems to be the way things are done here in the “ Wild West” to not check in or stop by no matter how genial you are or how much people say they value you living in their community.
This incident affirmed my decision to
move now that I am elderly, to live close to my cousins who do live in community, work and promote community.
I don’t wonder so much about the police as I do about the medical concierge service. Maybe it’s different in Santa Fe, but I understand it to be premium care, personalized service, with 24/7 medical availability. They would know the family’s medical situation and if a patient called with a problem they should have followed up.
@Eurydice, I believe it was the first time Betsy had contacted this medical service. She nor Gene were clients of theirs.
@TheOriginalMia – Interesting. Two of my mother’s doctors switched their practice to a concierge service. There would have been no way for my mother to call them for medical advice unless she had signed up to be a client. Now I wonder who the doctor was that diagnosed Gene’s Alzheimer’s and why there wasn’t follow-up from that quarter.
This is the side of celebrity I can not imagine. The fact that all these reporters are crawling around trying to dig up info on the tragic death of an elderly woman and her mentally declining, VERY elderly husband just feels icky.
I haven’t heard any suspicion of a crime or medical malpractice, so it’s really just general nosiness of how two old, reclusive people died at this point.
Hey! Who are you calling “elderly”!?! Sixty five isn’t “elderly” (she says from 61).
Although I have several friends married to older men, not this big an age gap, but 15-20 years and it’s really hard once they reach actual “elderly” — ages you, since the only people you hang out with are old.
I’ve also known enough famous people to know how they can guard their privacy in a way that keeps people at a distance, for instance: you don’t want to jeopardize your friendship with the famous person, so you perhaps go overboard on not intruding. Especially if they have a wife that much younger. You’d just assume she’s got a handle on it all. That they had no domestic help kind of reinforces that —
Sad story all around. Wear a mask around rodent droppings folks! Wash your hands!
The constant repitition of hantavirus being caused by rat droppings is infuriating to me. They are working to suggest that the couple lived in filthy conditions with three dogs. The tabloids are painting an ugly picture that doesn’t speak to how they seem to have really lived. They were private, and she was private, and they had the money to have help, but she wanted to take care of him. She probably thought that she had a cold or flu and it got bad too quickly for her to call for help for herself. Independent, generally healthy people don’t necessarily think that they need to carry their cell phones in a pajama pocket at home.
I read from a non-tabloid that she contacted the medical service about her husband, not herself. May they rest in peace.
I mean, hantavirus *is* spread by mouse and rat droppings — but in the intermountain west that doesn’t mean you’re “filthy.” There’s always mice in and out of houses in the west, and that part of the southwest, even in “nice” neighborhoods, packrats can be a real problem. Especially if you have a car you haven’t driven in a while.
But jeez people, you’re paying for a concierge medical service that doesnt’ even call in a wellness check? THAT is appalling.
The authorities have said the house tested clean for the virus, but the grounds and a shed on the grounds had tested positive. It could have been a gardening shed, or a place they kept bird feed or something.
Mice can get in anywhere they want to get in, they need very little space.
And – a concierge service? That is medical service out of pocket, high end care, you would think they would do a wellness check asap.
Eurydice, that shocked me actually. They tried to call her back twice unsuccessfuly… and left it at that??? Okay. And when the whole thing blew up in the media, they didn’t think to contact the police about the call but waited until they get around to check their phone records? I don’t know. This and the biased/non-chalant way the police set out to handle the case, it’s like no one cares what happened to them. I still don’t get how they can exclude the possibility of third party involvment, just because their was no break in.
This is all so tragic and strange – and the police mishandling the entire thing just makes it weirder.
So not only did Arakawa call for medical help on the 12th, but people also saw her out and about in public? How/when did the police learn that? Did folks see their report that she died on the 11th and have to contact the police to say, “Um, no, I saw her down at [wherever she was “seen in public] on the 12th, so couldn’t have died on the 11th”?
This absolutely instills no confidence in the police or the investigation. How have they bungled it at every possible step?
I’ve seen some think pieces about how all this fascination, speculation and conspiracy theorizing on their deaths is detracting from Hackman’s amazing legacy, and I get that, and I know that’s a shame.
But I don’t think this “fascination” is coming from a place of careless gossip-mongering or morbid fascination – I think it’s been clear to even the most casual of celebrity-news-consumers that this is a possibly strange situation that has definitely 100% been badly handled, and I think it’s people showing care for a beloved actor to want more than some terribly ham-fisted investigation by people who are clearly bad at their job. I think the speculation is people just wanting this case, and Hackman’s and Arakawa’s last moments, to be treated with respect, concern and competence, and not…whatever the heck is actually happening.
People need to go read some more detailed news reports. She was last seen in town on the 11th! The initial time of death was an ESTIMATE based on that, the body decomp, local weather patterns, lack of humidity, etc. They clearly stated they were still waiting for the cell phone records which they just received yesterday. That is how they now know she was still alive on the morning of the 12th. As to why she called, how many messages she left, what time they called back, I’ve read at least 4 different accounts of that. The media always pushes for immediate answers and the real world doesn’t work like that. We also don’t know what the resources are of the sheriff or medical staff in that area. Doesn’t sound like anyone messed up or is being lazy. It’s just reality.
The mess up here is on the part of media outlets who turned “the last day she is known to be alive is the 11th” into “she died on the 11th.”
This update is entirely consistent with what officials actually said at the press conference. It’s just not consistent with what media outlets lazily reported.
Also, why are we suddendly so sure she died on the 12th?
Medical concierge firm confirmed she seemed ok, with no breathing problems on te 12th?
Why did celebitchy write “she probably died on the 12th.”?
I think some of the concern is related to he worry all of us “getting older” people fear; dying alone with neighbors not checking because they know you have family, and family thinking that your friends are probably checking. If this can happen to Gene Hackman it can happen to us. It’s not being intrusive or nosey, it’s worry.
They apparently didn’t mingle much with neighbors and family by their own choice even before he was ill.
That a caregiver and care recipient were abandoned, left to try to manage on their own is not unusual at all. Unfortunately.
WTH is Cloudberry doing revealing protected information to the Daily Fail? Telling a media outlet that a person contacted their service is a violation of HIPAA as well as basic patient/doctor confidentiality. if that’s what happened they are liable for fines and sanctions.