New information obtained from Betsy Arakawa’s phone records shed new light on the timeline of her death.
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were both found deceased in their New Mexico home on February 26. There were no signs of foul play or trauma, and authorities quickly ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning.
Nearly two weeks after their bodies were found, the results of their autopsies were made public. In a press conference held on Friday (March 7), the lead examiner for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Examiner revealed that Arakawa, 65, died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Hackman, 95, died of heart disease and complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
“The cause of death for Mr. Gene Hackman, age 95 years, is a hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributing factor,” the examiner said. “Autopsy examination and a full-body post-mortem CT examination … showed severe heart disease, including multiple surgical procedures involving the heart, evidence of prior heart attacks, and severe changes to the kidneys due to chronic high blood pressure.”
It was previously unclear how long Hackman and his wife had been deceased before their bodies were discovered. Authorities who arrived on the scene only said that they appeared to have been dead for a significant amount of time as their bodies showed signs of decomposition.
RELATED: WHAT IS HANTAVIRUS – THE DISEASE THAT KILLED BETSY ARAKAWA?
At the same March 7 press conference, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza shared that Hackman likely died February 18 as it was the last date with any recorded activity on his pacemaker. Mendoza also detailed the last days of Arakawa and shared what investigators thought was a timeline of her death, indicating that Hackman had likely died a week after his wife.
“He was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, and it’s possible that he did not know she was deceased,” the examiner said.
New information changes the timeline of Betsy Arakawa’s death.
Mendoza told the press that they were waiting on phone records but determined that Arakawa likely died on February 11 based on email activity.
Arakawa had a conversation with her massage therapist via email on the morning of February 11. Later that day, Betsy shopped at a local grocery store and made a stop at a pharmacy before stopping at a pet food store. Her car was seen on surveillance footage returned home that evening. No email activity was detected after that.
But newly released cell phone records show that Arakawa made three calls on the morning of February 12, a day after she was thought to have died. Those calls were made to medical concierge service, Cloudberry Health. Records also show that Arakawa didn’t answer an incoming call from Cloudberry Health that afternoon.
Sheriff Mendoza told Good Morning America on March 17 that Arakawa’s call “would indicate to me that she was seeking medical advice or medical help and may have not been feeling well.”
Arakawa had reportedly made an appointment for herself but never showed up.
Dr. Josiah Child, head of Cloudberry Health in New Mexico, reportedly spoke with Daily Mail and shared that Arakawa called his clinic the day after authorities said that she died. He also shared that Betsy had called to make an appointment for her husband who wasn’t feeling well.
“She’d called me a couple of weeks before her death to ask about getting an echocardiogram for her husband. She was not a patient of mine, but one of my patients recommended Cloudberry to her. She made an appointment for herself for February 12. It was for something unrelated to anything respiratory,” Child told the outlet, adding that Arakawa canceled her appointment because Hackman was unwell. “She called back on the morning of February 12 and spoke to one of our doctors who told her to come in that afternoon.”
Child said that Arakawa never showed up, but didn’t show any signs of respiratory distress or symptoms of hantavirus over the phone. “We tried calling her a couple of times with no reply.”
The cause of death for Hackman and Arakawa’s dog, Zinna, revealed.
Gene Hackman was found deceased in a mud room with his cane and glasses nearby. Arakawa’s body was found in a bathroom with prescription medication scattered nearby and the couple’s dog, Zinna, in a crate in the bathroom.
ABC News reported last week that a newly released necropsy report revealed that the dog likely died of dehydration and starvation and showed “severe postmortem decomposition with partial mummification.”
There were no signs of trauma, poisoning, or infection, the report stated. And the dog’s stomach was “mostly empty except for very small amounts of hair and bile.”