Preliminary autopsy results didn’t determine how Oscar-winner Gene Hackman and his wife died at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but did rule out that they were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, the sheriff leading the investigation said Friday.
The condition of the bodies found Wednesday indicated the deaths occurred at least several days earlier and there was no sign of foul play.
At a news conference, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said the initial examination by the medical examiner showed no sign of carbon monoxide, a colorless and odorless gas produced from kitchen appliances and other fuel-burning items. When it collects in poorly ventilated homes, it can be fatal.
Mendoza also said an examination of the 95-year-old Hackman’s pacemaker showed it stopped working on Feb. 17, which means he may have died nine days earlier.
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Hackman’s body was found in an entryway. The body of his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65, was in a bathroom. She was on her side and a space heater was near her head. Investigators said the heater likely was pulled down when she fell. There also was an open prescription bottle and pills scattered on a countertop.
Whether the pills or other drugs were a factor won’t be known until toxicology tests are completed in the coming weeks.
Dr. Philip Keen, the retired chief medical examiner in Maricopa County, Arizona, said it would be unlikely for a person who tests negative for carbon monoxide initially to later be found to have been poisoned by it.
He also said the moment when a pacemaker stops working could mark the point when a person dies, but not always.
“If your heart required a pacemaker, there would certainly be an interruption at that point — and it might be the hallmark of when the death occurred,” Keen said. “But it’s not necessarily because some people get a pacemaker to augment things, not necessarily replace things.”
Investigators are trying to figure out the last time anyone saw or spoke to the couple who were known to guard their privacy.
“There is no surveillance, as we know of right now, in the interior of the residence or the exterior of the residence, that is going to help us determine a timeline or events that happened,” Mendoza said.
Authorities released few other details at a Friday news conference about the deaths.
According to a search warrant affidavit, an open prescription bottle and pills were on a countertop near Arakawa. Authorities who later searched the home retrieved medication that treats high blood pressure and chest pain, thyroid medication, Tylenol, two cellphones, a monthly planner and records from medical diagnostics testing, court records filed Friday showed.
Detectives wrote in a search warrant affidavit that investigators thought the deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.”
No gas leaks were discovered in and around the home. A space heater was next to Arakawa and may have fallen when she abruptly fell to the floor, according to the affidavit.
A maintenance worker who showed up to do routine work at the house could not get inside the house and called a security worker spotted two people on the ground, Mendoza said.
The worker who called 911 told an operator he did not know if they were breathing.
“I have no idea,” the subdivision’s caretaker said on the call. “I am not inside the house. It’s closed. It’s locked. I can’t go in. But I can see she’s laying down on the floor from the window.”
He and another worker later told authorities that they rarely saw the homeowners and that their last contact with them had been about two weeks ago.
Hackman was among the most accomplished actors of his generation, appearing as villains, heroes and antiheroes in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.
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.”
He met Arakawa, a classically trained pianist, at a California gym in the mid-1980s. They moved to Santa Fe by the end of the decade. Their Pueblo revival home sits on a hill in a gated community with views of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
In his first couple of decades in New Mexico, Hackman was often seen around the state capital and served on the board of trustees for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum from 1997 to 2004.
In recent years, he was far less visible. Aside from appearances at awards shows, he was rarely seen in the Hollywood social circuit and retired from acting about 20 years ago.
Hackman had three children from a previous marriage. He and Arakawa had no children but were known for having German shepherds.
