Search command describes the scene in Home

By Susan Montoya Bryan and Brian Mülley | Associated Press

Santa Fe, NM – actor Gene Hackman, his wife and one of her dogs were apparently dead for some time before a maintenance worker discovered her bodies in the couple of Santa Fe, the investigators said.

The 95-year-old Hackman was found dead on Wednesday, and his 65-year-old woman Betsy Arakawa was in a bathroom next to a room heating, Detectives of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office wrote in an affidavit of the search command. There was an open prescription bottle and pills on a worktop near Arakawa.

Denise Avila, a spokesman for a sheriff, said there was no indication that they were shot or had any wounds.

The New Mexico Gas Co. tested the gas pipes in and around the house after the corpses had been discovered, like the arrest warrant. At that time it found no signs of problems and the fire brigade found no signs of a carbon monoxide leak or poisoning. A detective wrote that there were no obvious signs of a gas leak, but he found that people who were exposed to gas leaks or carbon monoxide may not have any signs of poisoning.

The rugged but loved one was one of the experienced actors of his generation and appeared in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s to his retirement in the early 2000s as bad guys, heroes and antiheros.

“He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but for us he was only papa and grandpa,” said his daughters and granddaughter in an explanation on Thursday. “We will miss him very much and are destroyed by the loss on the ground.”

Workers made 911 calls

According to the affidavit of the search command, a maintenance worker reported that the front door of the house was open when he came to routine work on Wednesday, and he called the police after finding the corpses.

But in a call of 911, the maintenance worker said that he couldn't get in when the operator asked if the people in the house would breathe.

“I have no idea,” said the caretaker of the subdivision. “I'm not in the house. It is closed. It is closed. I can't go in. But I can see that she puts out of the window on the floor. “

He and another worker later told the authorities that they rarely saw the homeowners and their last contact with them existed about two weeks ago.

Hackman seemed to have been a favor, observed a deputy. One stick was nearby.

One of the couples' dogs, a German shepherd dog, also died. The police said the pet was found in a bathroom cabinet near Arakawa, but during a press conference on Thursday Santa Fe County Sheriff said Adan Mendoza that the dog was found in a kennel. Two healthy dogs were found on the property, one inside and one outside.

“There was no reference to a fight,” said Mendoza. “There was no indication of something that was missing from home or was disturbed, you know that it would be an indication that a crime had taken place.”

The results of autopsia that were carried out in both bodies are not yet available, said the Sheriff officials that carbon monoxide and toxicology test results are pending.

The affidavit by the search command suggests that the police seem to have a functioning theory that “a kind of gas poisoning” has taken place, but that they do not know anything and does not yet exclude anything, said Laurie Levenson, professor of the University of Loyola Marymount University.

“You have no clear evidence that it is some kind of murder, but you ask for blunt instruments or other weapons that could be used,” said Levenson, who has no connection to the examination. “It doesn't look like a kind of planned double self-murder either.”

Jeffrey Bellin, Professor of William & Mary Law School, said that the request for a search command was a bit unusual because investigators who submit one usually believe that a certain crime was committed. In this case, no alleged crime was mentioned, said Bellin.

The police tend to exaggerate what they know, but this is the opposite, said Bellin, who is also not connected to the examination.

“It only carefully beat me in a way that is often not the affidavit from the search for arrest warrants,” he said.

Gated community in the hills

Actor Gene Hackman and his wife, the classic pianist Betsy Arakawa, left a restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 28, 2024. (Imago/Zuma Press/TNS)

The ranch in the southwestern style of the couple on the Old Sunset Trail is located on a hill in a closed community with a view of the Rocky Mountains. The extensive house with four bedrooms on 6 hectares was built in 1997 and, according to Santa Fe County basic tax records, had an estimated market value of just over $ 4 million.

They also had a more modest home next door.

Hackman met Arakawa, a classically trained pianist who grew up in Hawaii when she worked in a Californian gym in a Californian gym in the mid -1980s. They soon moved together and moved to Santa Fe by the end of the decade.

According to Verlag Simon & Schuster, Hackman also wrote three novels with the Swashbuckler “Wake of the Perdido Star” with Daniel Lenihan with Daniel Lenihan. He then wrote two himself and in 2013 with “persecution” about a female police officer at the tail of a predator.

In his first decades in New Mexico, Hackman was often seen in the historic state capital, which is known as an artist -slave, tourism goal and retreat for celebrities.

From 1997 to 2004 he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Georgia O'keeffe Museum, the museum announced in a statement.

Hackmans later years

It has been far less visible in recent years, even though even the most secular excursions attracted the press' attention. There were articles about him who had visited a show in a performing art center in 2018, pumping gas, gardening and in 2023 at Wendy a chicken sandwich.

Apart from the appearances at award ceremonies, he was rarely seen in Hollywood Social Circuit and withdrawn from acting about 20 years ago. It was the rare Hollywood rest stand that actually lasted.

Hackman had three children from a previous marriage.

___

Melley reported from London. Associated Press Writers Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona; Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles; Jacques Acellaud in Phoenix; Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; Sylvia Hui in London and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

Originally published: February 27, 2025 at 5:35 p.m. PST

Search command describes the scene in Home – The Mercury News

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