Gene Hackman's Wife's Phone Calls Change Authorities' Conclusions About Their Deaths

Authorities continue to discover new details surrounding the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa. On Monday, investigators revealed that Arakawa likely died at least one day later than they had previously estimated — a revelation supported by her phone records, according to a report.

Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65, were found dead in their Santa Fe home on Feb. 26: He was found in a mudroom and she was found on the floor in a bathroom. Authorities on March 7 revealed that Hackman died of heart disease with Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor — and that he died about a week after Arakawa, who had contracted a fatal case of hantavirus, which is spread by rodent droppings.

Investigators previously believed that Arakawa had died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome on Feb. 11 — the date she was last seen publicly and stopped returning emails — but after analyzing her cellphone, they determined that she had made three phone calls the next morning, the New York Times reported.

Arakawa made the calls to a doctor's office, Cloudberry Health, to make an appointment for the afternoon. She reported feeling congested but showed no signs of respiratory distress, Dr. Josiah Child, the office's lead physician said.

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She did not show up for her appointment that afternoon and did not pick up the phone when the office called regarding the missed appointment.

“I suspect that she was starting to feel ill and that’s why she reached out to us,” Child said.

Arakawa had initially scheduled an appointment for Feb. 12 days earlier, but ended up canceling it on Feb. 10. She told the doctor's office she needed to take care of her husband, Child said.

The clinic rescheduled the appointment for that day after she called in the morning of Feb. 12, according to the Times.

Two of the couple's dogs were alive when police responded to the house on Feb. 26. A third dog was found dead in a crate in a bathroom closet near Arakawa’s body.

A report from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture's veterinary lab showed the dog, a kelpie mix named Zinna, likely died due to dehydration and starvation.

Like Hackman and Arakawa, the dog's body was decomposing and showed some mummification — a consequence of body type and Santa Fe's dry climate.

The report noted that the dog's stomach was mostly empty except for small amounts of hair and bile.

Zinna went from being a returned shelter dog to an incredible companion that was always at Arakawa's side, said Joey Padilla, owner of the Santa Fe Tails pet care facility that was involved in the surviving dogs’ care.

While Hackman and Arakawa's deaths were ruled to be from natural causes, the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office is finishing up the investigation by tying up the timeline with any information gleaned from the cellphones collected at the home and last contacts that were made.

“The case is considered active until we have that information to tie up the timeline,” said Denise Womack Avila, a spokesperson for the sheriff said last week.

• Read more: Gene Hackman And Wife's Cause Of Death Identified

Meantime, a New Mexico court has granted a temporary restraining order against the release of records connected to the investigation at the request of a representative of the couple's estate.

The request to seal the records notes that the couple placed “a significant value on their privacy and took affirmative vigilant steps” to safeguard their privacy over their lifetime, including after they moved to Santa Fe and Hackman retired. The state capital is known as a refuge for celebrities, artists and authors.

“The personal representative seeks to continue to preserve the privacy of the Hackmans following their tragic death and support the family's constitutional right to remembrance and desire to grieve in peace,” the document states.

Privacy likely will play a role as well as the couple's estate gets settled. According to probate court documents filed earlier this month, Hackman signed an updated will in 2005 leaving his estate to his wife while the will she signed that same year directed her estate to him in the event of her death. With both of them dying, management of the estate is in the hands of Peters, a Santa Fe-based attorney and trust manager.

A request is pending to appoint a trustee who can administer assets in two trusts associated with the estate. Without trust documents being made public, it's unclear who the beneficiaries are and how the assets will be divided.

Attorneys who specialize in estate planning in New Mexico say it's possible more details could come out if there were any legal disputes over the assets. Even then, they said, the parties likely would ask the court to seal the documents to maintain privacy.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated the timeline. Betsy Arakawa died before her husband.