Gene Hackman and wife’s deaths not due to carbon monoxide, officials say; cause is still a mystery

Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa tested negative for carbon monoxide poisoning, authorities in New Mexico announced Friday, after the couple were found dead in their home earlier this week.

The cause of death is still under investigation. Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza told reporters Friday the “manner and cause of death have not been determined” and the official results of the autopsy and toxicology reports are pending. 

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

The sheriff’s office has said there were no apparent signs of foul play, but Mendoza told reporters Thursday that he wasn’t ruling it out.

“We’re keeping everything on the table,” Mendoza said.

Investigators said in an affidavit for a search warrant for the property that the circumstances surrounding the deaths were “suspicious enough in nature” to require an investigation.

The initial findings from autopsies found no signs of external trauma on either body, according to the sheriff’s office.

“There was no indication of a struggle,” Mendoza told reporters. “There was no indication of anything that was missing from the home or disturbed, you know, that would be indication that there was a crime that had occurred, there was no indication of that.”

Mendoza told reporters the couple appeared to have been dead for a while. He said Friday that Hackman’s pacemaker recorded its last event on Feb. 17 — nine days before the bodies were found — and “according to the pathologist, I think that is a very good assumption that that was his last day of life.”

Asked if investigators have been able to determine which of the two died first, Mendoza replied, “That’s a question that’s we want answered. That’s a very hard to determination to make.”

The couple’s bodies were found when a caretaker came to the property for some maintenance work, according to the sheriff’s office. When no one answered at the home, the caretaker contacted neighborhood security to conduct a welfare check at the home. A security officer saw Hackman and Arakawa’s bodies on the floor through a window and called 911.

“They’re not moving, just send somebody out here really quick,” the 911 caller told a dispatcher, according to an audio recording of the call.

The couple’s bodies were found in different parts of the home, according to the sheriff’s office. A dead dog was found in a bathroom closet near Arakawa’s body, and two other dogs were found alive on the property, according to the search warrant affidavit.

A pill bottle was also found on a countertop near Arakawa’s body in the bathroom, and pills were scattered across the counter, according to the affidavit. Authorities took from the property two types of medication for blood pressure and thyroid issues as well as Tylenol, according to an inventory filed in a Santa Fe court.

Authorities also took health records, two cellphones and a monthly planner, according to the inventory.

contributed to this report.