Beloved actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their Santa Fe home on Wednesday alongside one of their dogs. At this point in the investigation, officials say the pair may have been dead for “several days” or even “a couple weeks” by the time they were found.
“It’s very difficult to put a timeline together, even with the help of the office of the medical investigator,” Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza told “Today” on Friday morning. “Just based on their body and other evidence on the body, it look — it appears several days, possibly even up to a couple weeks.”
Following the initial announcement of Hackman’s death, details began emerging on Thursday that both bodies had signs of decomposition, with “mummification in both hands and feet.” Natural mummification is rare, but possible, and according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the process “is time-consuming and needs several weeks to months to set in completely.”
Santa Fe Fire Chief Brian Moyer also appeared on NBC talk show, reiterating that there was no carbon monoxide “that was concerning” in the home at the time they found the bodies. However, he conceded that it’s possible that, if Hackman and his wife had died much earlier, a lethal leak could’ve dissipated by the time first responders arrived.
“It possibly could. That was a home with natural gas in it, so it could have,” Moyer said. “Yeah, there’s a lot of unanswered there. When we arrived, we made sure that our people, as well as the sheriff, were safe, and there was nothing that we found. We also went back again yesterday to do another round of searches with the Sheriff Department, and we didn’t find anything as well.”
The body of Hackman, 95, was found in the mud room of the house, and his wife Arakawa, 64, was found lying on her side on the bathroom floor with a space heater near her head, according to a search warrant affidavit from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department.
An open prescription bottle and pills scattered near Arakawa’s body were discovered by authorities as well, along with a dog found dead nearby in a closet. Two other dogs were found alive on the property.
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