When the bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were discovered in their home in Santa Fe together with one of their three German shepherd dogs, the initial belief was that they were the victims of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Nevertheless, civil servants who blew the dead investigations that blew out of the water on Friday when they announced that no signs of carbon monoxide were found in their systems and revealed that Hackman had been dead at least nine days when the bodies were discovered by maintenance workers on Wednesday.
The last registered activity on the pacemaker of the 95-year-old actor was 17 February, although delegates from the sheriff did not confirm whether the 64-year-old Arakawa died the same day.
Hackman was dead in the mud room, his stick and sunglasses by his side, according to the police. Arakawa was found on the bathroom floor; Recipe pills were littered on the countertop in the neighborhood. Both bodies were dissected and partially mummified.
A dog, one of the three German shepherds owned by the couple, was also deceased – closed in a kennel.
But with carbon monoxide the mystery closed out about what the couple is only deepened.
Now Daily Mail has spoken with three world -famous experts in the reconstruction of the crime scene and forensic pathology about what they believe that happened within that house.
When the bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa (photo) were discovered in their Santa Fe -house together with one of their three German shepherd dogs, the initial belief was that they were the victims of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Officials who blew the dead examined that theory from the water when they announced that no signs of carbon monoxide were found in their systems and revealed that Hackman had at least been dead for nine days.
Dr. Michael Baden
Dr. Michael Baden is the former lead researcher for New York City and a regular contribution to FOX News. He has testified during numerous controversial tests, including those of OJ Simpson and Phil Spector and was hired by the Jeffrey Epstein family to supervise the autopsy of the shame.
Here you have two deceased adults and a dog, without signs of trauma. Until the police confirmed on Friday evening that there was no carbon monoxide in their systems, I would have placed my money.
Instead, I think we have a situation in which he had an existing heart condition and possibly a mal-functioning pacemaker. You can of course get a fatal heart attack, even if your pacemaker works great.
He had a heart attack in the mud room and I suspect she found him. She could not lift him, she ran to the bathroom to get his medication and she fell and ran a subdural hematoma on-a brain blood-that she killed her own already existing condition such as heart problems or hypertension and that ensured that she had her own deadly event.
Knowing as we do now, they had undiscovered for nine days, and knowing that the dog was locked up in a crate or cupboard of a description, I think it died of lack of care. It couldn't survive for that long without water and the other two dogs were loose with a door open so that they could come and take care of themselves in a way he could not.
A dog, one of the three German shepherds owned by the couple, was also deceased – closed in a kennel. (Depicted: Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa with their German shepherds).
Dr. Michael Baden (photo) is the former main researcher for New York City. He has testified during numerous controversial tests, including those of OJ Simpson and Phil Spector and was hired by the Jeffrey Epstein family to supervise the autopsy of the shame.
Mike Sutton
Mike Sutton is a forensic engineer and qualified crime crime reconstructionist based in North Carolina. He was an expert witness during the Alex Murdaugh process, who was convicted of killing his wife and son in 2023.
I understand that they had been dead for a while, but forensics must still be able to determine by the state of decomposition of the bodies or whether they have been for the same time.
They were both in the same environment – for example, there was no in the garden – so it should be possible to say whether they died in the same small time window or whether their deaths were separated by days.
But because I work in this world, an alternative scenario came up with me that something caused MR Hackman's wife to die and that she was the primary health career led to his death and that of the dog that was clearly dependent on both of them.
I understand that pills were spread where Betsy Arakawa was found, so I wondered if she had a kind of medical event and tried to take medication, but she could not or maybe a handful of pills to overdose.
Maybe Mr. Hackman was dependent on her to manage medication to him, maybe he found her and he would find his phone to call for help, but fell.
The most important thing will retain the scene until they determine what happened.
If you can solve the mystery with autopsy and toxicology, you don't have to tear the house apart. But if you come across a dead end, you go back to the house, and you look for other supporting documents that can tell you what they were doing in the moments before they died.
The last registered activity on the pacemaker of the 95-year-old actor was 17 February, although delegates from the sheriff did not confirm whether the 64-year-old Arakawa died the same day. (Shown: Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa in 2003).
Mike Sutton (photo) is a forensic engineer and qualified crime crime reconstructionist based in North Carolina. He was an expert witness during the Alex Murdaugh process, who was convicted of killing his wife and son in 2023.
Paul Mauro
Paul Mauro makes a regular contribution to FOX News as a legal and criminal analyst. A NYPD veteran with 26 years of experience that he practices with Demarco Law and is the host of Fox Nation Special, “Blood in America: The Tren de Aragua Invasion.”
Researchers must limit the time of death and currently it is vital to obtain as much digital data as possible. You can get a very penetrating view of people's lives by entering that world.
There will be computers and they also recovered telephones from the house.
This is not easy, but they will look at who they called and called messages, and what they were looking for. In suicides, people often look for painless ways to die, for example.
Does anyone threatened them? Were there continuous disputes? When was the last picket back?
It is a $ 3 million house, so there will be a kind of alarm system and possibly motion sensors or ring cameras. They will also want to rip all that information.
Some of these ring cameras have audio – have they picked up a disturbance? Have the dogs gone crazy? Has anyone shouted? Was there the registered shock of one of the partners who found the other on site? If they have an Alexa device that can collect a lot of information.
Using patterns – when was the last time the computer was driven or switched on, the car could register all trips – can also help limit the window for exactly when they both died.
You will not be able to bring it to minutes, but one has fallen and the other only discovered a while later? The police theoretizes that he fell because he had his stick with him. If that happened and his wife only found him too late, she might be upset and took an overdose.
There was some discrepancy about the maintenance employee who said the door was locked up and was safe and the police said it was open and ajar. Thinking is that the police were talking about the back door and the employee about the front, but those differences must be tackled.
Paul Mauro (photo) makes a regular contribution to FOX News as a legal and criminal analyst. A NYPD veteran with 26 years of experience that he practices with Demarco Law and is the host of Fox Nation Special, “Blood in America: The Tren de Aragua Invasion.”
If it was suicide, they might leave the door open to the other dogs and forgot that one was locked up in his cage.
The police have said that this is suspected for the very good reason that it means that they can go to court and get the search orders they need. Yet you have two people dead, a dog dead and two others alive, the back door is open – it is suspicious.
If I were to conduct this research, I would do all the traditional things-look for tires and footprints that should not be there, talking to the neighbors, the maintenance workers, family members and digging in the digital footprint.
Information comes out in phases. With the autopsy, the medical investigator or coroner can tell some things fairly quickly – if there are blunt strength trauma or ligature markings, a broken hyoid bone in the neck or petechiae (blood vessels) in the eyes, for example, strangulation. Then there is toxicology that can take weeks to come back with results.
The medicines they found in the bathroom next to Mrs. Arakawa were Tylenol, a blood pressure medicine and thyroid medicine. These are not suicide medicines, but in doses high enough, all could have been fatal. The pills that were spread in the bathroom could have been very different.
If a former police officer who has investigated a lot of pill suicide, I would be looking for a bottle of drink because suicidal people often consume pills with alcohol.
