Actor Gene Hackman’s wife was captured in a final video image on the last day she was alive.
That’s according to a painstaking reconstruction of the tragic couple’s last days by USA Today.
Betsy Arakawa, Hackman’s wife, was captured in the surveillance video image on Feb. 11, the final day of her life, the Santa Fe County sheriff revealed in a news conference.
She was wearing a mask likely because of the Hantavirus that would kill her, the newspaper reported, adding that the video image shows Arakawa “strolling through the aisles of a CVS Pharmacy in Santa Fe.”
However, a red flag emerged: Arakawa didn’t pick up medication for the couple’s dogs that day, USA Today reported.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said in a news conference that, on Feb. 26, the bodies of Hackman, Arakawa, and their dog were discovered at their residence. Both tested negative for carbon monoxide, he said.
Dr. Heather Jarrell, the Chief Medical Examiner for New Mexico, said in the news conference that the cause of death for Arakawa, 65, was Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. There were no findings of trauma, and the death was natural, Jarrell said.
Hantavirus is characterized by “flu-like symptoms,” Jarrell said. Rodent excrement exposure leads to the disease, she said, adding that the mortality rate for that strain is about 38% to 50%.
Hackman, 95, died of hypertensive, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease with Alzheimer’s Disease as a contributing factor, Jarrell said.
The preliminary pacemaker results for Hackman helped pinpoint his date of death, showing he had cardiac activity on Feb. 17 and an abnormal rhythm on the next day. He probably died around Feb. 18, about a week after his wife died, she said.
On Feb. 9, Arakawa picked up the couple’s dog from a veterinarian, which might explain why the dog was in a crate, the sheriff said. On Feb. 11, she visited a farmer’s market and then “was seen on surveillance video” at CVS pharmacy from 4:12 to 4:20 p.m., he confirmed.
She then stopped at a local pet food store, and her car was seen on video entering her subdivision at 5:15 p.m. After that point, numerous emails were left unopened on her computer, and there was no known activity by her after that point, Mendoza said in the news conference.
.
