Gene Hackman's deaths and women are not due to carbon monoxide due to carbon monoxide. The cause is still a mystery

Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa tested negatively for carbon monoxide poisoning, the authorities in New Mexico announced Friday after the couple was found dead in their house at the beginning of this week.

The cause of death is still under Investigation. Adan Mendoza, the sheriff of Santa Fe County, told the reporters on Friday that “species and the cause of death had not been determined”, and the official results of the autopsi and toxicologists are still pending.

The couple was discovered by a caretaker on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Sheriff's Office of the Santa Fe County. One of her dogs was also found dead.

The sheriff's office said that there were no obvious signs of a foul, but Mendoza said reporters on Thursday that he did not exclude it.

“We keep everything on the table,” said Mendoza.

In an affidavit, the investigators said for a search order against ownership that the circumstances of the deaths were “suspicious enough” to request an examination.

According to Sheriff's Office, the first results of autopsies found no signs of external trauma on both bodies.

“There was no reference to a fight,” Mendoza told reporters. “There was no indication of something that was missing from home or was disturbed, you know that there was an indication that there was a crime that had occurred, there was no indication of it.”

Mendoza said reporters that the couple seemed to be dead for a while. He said on Friday that Hackman's pacemaker on February 17th – nine days before the corpses were found – and “according to the pathologist I think that is a very good assumption that this was his last day of life”.

When asked whether the investigators could find out which of the two first died, Mendoza replied: “This is a question that we want to answer. This is a very difficult decision.”

The couple's bodies were found when a caretaker, according to the sheriff's office, came to the property for some maintenance work. When nobody responded in the house, the caretaker contacted the security of the neighborhood to carry out a welfare check in the house. A security officer saw Hackman and Arakawa's body through a window on the floor and called 911.

“You don't move, just send someone here very quickly,” said the 911 caller to a dispatcher, according to an audio recording of the call.

According to the sheriff's office, the couple's bodies were found in different parts of the house. A dead dog was found in a bathroom cabinet near Arakawa's body, and two other dogs were found alive on the property, according to the affidavit of the search command.

A pill bottle was also found on a worktop near Arakawa's body in the bathroom, and the pills were scattered over the counter according to an affidavit. According to a inventory submitted in a court in Santa Fe, the authorities took two types of medication against blood pressure and thyroid problems and Tylenol.

According to the inventory, the authorities also took health records, two mobile phones and a monthly planner.

Anna Schecter contributed to this report.