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On Thursday, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office obtained a search warrant for Gene Hackman’s home because they felt his and his wife’s deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation.” Now, several of the items that were taken in the search of the actor’s home have been revealed as investigators speak out on the couple’s deaths.
Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 63, were both found dead in their Santa Fe, N.M. home on Wednesday, as was one of their pet dogs. Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza initially stated that no foul play was suspected, but after Arakawa’s body was shown to have “obvious signs of death, body decomposition, bloating in her face and mummification in both hands and feet,” and Gene Hackman’s body was in a “similar and consistent” condition, a search warrant was obtained.
According to police documents obtained by TMZ, the search of the home led to the seizure of several items, including a thyroid medication, Tylenol, Diltiazem, records from healthcare website MyQuest, a 2025 calendar and two cell phones.
It was noted in the search warrant that deputies observed “a deceased dog laying 10-15 feet from the deceased female in a closet of the bathroom, the heater being moved, the pill bottle being opened and pills scattered next to the female” after they made entry into the home. Two other dogs were found alive on the property.
Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa appeared to have been dead several days before their bodies were discovered by maintenance workers, who called 911. The New Mexico Gas Company tested the gas lines in the area and reported “there are no signs or evidence indicating there were any problems associated to the pipes in and around the residence.”
“It’s very difficult to put a timeline together even with the help of the office of the medical investigator,” Sheriff Mendoza told the Today show on Friday. “Just based on their body and other evidence on the body, it looked — it appears [that they were deceased for] several days, even up to a couple of weeks.”
“There’s no indication that anybody was moving about the house or doing anything different, so it’s very hard to determine if they both passed at the same time or how close they passed together,” Mendoza continued. “We’re trying to put that information together… and I think the autopsy report is going to be key to this investigator.”
The Sheriff also added that the pills found scattered near Arakawa are “obviously very important evidence” and that investigators are “looking at that specifically and other medications that were possibly in the residence.”
Santa Fe Fire Chief Brian Moya, who joined Mendoza during the interview on Today, said, “That was a home with natural gas in it, so it could have [played a factor in their deaths]. There’s a lot of unanswered [questions] there. When we arrived, we made sure 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 … and we didn’t find anything as well.”