Unsettling details continue to emerge about the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, including the fact that their bodies remain unclaimed at the New Mexico medical examiner’s office while Arakawa’s hairdresser revealed her concern that she and her husband were being followed by a strange man weeks before their deaths.
The “lack of concrete answers” as to how a beloved Hollywood star like Hackman, along with his wife, died alone in their Santa Fe home weeks before their bodies were found on Feb. 26, has prompted his two surviving daughters to hire a private investigator, veteran Hollywood entertainment journalist Rob Shuter reported Wednesday.
Even though authorities say they never suspected foul play and believe that Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65, died of natural causes, other possibilities have come to mind this week, according to Shuter.
Fox News published body-camera footage of a police interview with Arakawa’s hairdresser, who said his client was “frazzled” in the weeks before her death. He said she expressed concerns that she and her husband were being followed by a strange man on two occasions while out in Santa Fe.
“She mentioned to me that there was a man that had parked outside of their gate and followed them, on two separate occasions,” the hairdresser, just known as Christopher, told police.
“One occasion is when they went White Rock (a nearby community),” Christopher continued. “They went and had lunch there and the guy followed them from parked (outside of their gated community), followed them all the way to White Rock. She said, ‘Christopher, I’m surprised that security didn’t (know) how he got there … because when we left, I noticed that this car had followed us from the residence to White Rock.’”
The man may have been an unusually obsessive Hackman fan, because he approached the couple, pulled out a folder of photos of the Oscar-winning actor and asked him to sign them. But Arakawa told Christopher she found this behavior strange, as well as invasive, because Santa Fe is “not a place of paparazzi,” and the couple usually aren’t bothered by fans. She said she told them man he “needed to have more respect.”
Arakawa also told Christopher that the man followed them to a different location at another time and offered them a bottle of wine, which Arakawa said they declined.
The final days of “The French Connection” star and his classical pianist wife have been under scrutiny ever since New Mexico authorities found their bodies, along with a deceased dog, in their $3.8 million Santa Fe home on February 26.
According to activity from Hackman’s pacemaker, he most likely died on February 18 from cardiovascular disease, with an “advanced” case of Alzheimer’s disease as a contributing factor.
But it appears that Hackman was alone in the house with his wife’s body for nearly a week after she died suddenly from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, caused by a rare infection with a potentially fatal virus carried by rodents.
Santa Fe authorities initially theorized that Arakawa died on Feb. 11, but Hackman’s cardiologist recently claimed that Arakawa called him on Feb. 12, inquiring about scheduling an echocardiogram for her husband. But Arakawa didn’t bring Hackman in for her appointment that day and they never heard from her again.
Meanwhile, the body of their beloved 12-year-old dog Zinna was found dead in a crate, where she had likely been placed while recovering from surgery. The Associated Press reported that Zinna likely died of dehydration and starvation after Arakawa died. The couple’s two other dogs were found alive on the property.
Adding to the tragic dimensions of the case is the fact that Hackman’s will didn’t mention his three surviving children, raising questions about who will inherit his estimated $80 million fortune.
Page Six reported that Hackman had a strained relationship with his children from his first marriage to ex-wife Faye Maltese: son Christopher Hackman, 65, and daughters Leslie Hackman, 62, and Elizabeth Hackman, 58. They all live in California and didn’t appear to have been in regular contact with their father or stepmother, according to reports.
But since Hackman’s 2005 will, which had not been updated, left his fortune to his wife, and she’s dead, it’s likely that his children will get his estate to divide amongst themselves, especially if he didn’t expressly cut them out of his will, Los Angeles-based attorney Goldie Schon told The Sun.
Amid this uncertainty, Leslie and Elizabeth Hackman seem eager to get more answers about what led to their father’s death, with a source telling Radar Online that they are “frustrated” about things that don’t “add up.” That’s why they’ve hired a private investigator to look into the case. The source said, “Gene’s daughters will not rest until the truth is revealed.”
But as they seek the “truth,” they haven’t rushed to claim their father’s body, and there have been no reported plans to hold a memorial service. Both Hackman and Arakawa’s bodies remain unclaimed at the morgue more than a month after their deaths, TMZ reported Thursday.
While representatives for the Medical Examiner’s Office told TMZ that it’s not unusual for bodies to remain unclaimed weeks after a death, the situation raises the possibility that there could be legal wrangling about what to do with the remains, the Daily Mail reported.
“If his children wanted his remains handled in California, and he left no legally binding burial or cremation instructions, what happens next depends on a combination of state laws, family dynamic and logistics,” Laura Cowan, an estate planning attorney told the Daily Mail.
“If Gene’s children disagree about what should happen to his body, and no written directive exists, things can get complicated,” Cowan said. “The dispute could end up in court, and a judge would decide based on state law and other factors.”