SANTA FE, N.M. — One of Gene Hackman’s dogs led first responders to his body when they had difficulty locating him.
USA Today shared more details of the day when Hackman and his wife were found dead.
A maintenance man who frequently did work for the couple arrived at their Santa Fe home on Feb. 26 and found the front door open. He looked in a window and found Betsy Arakawa on the floor of the bathroom. He called another maintenance man who works for the subdivision where the home is located, who called 911.
Apparently the maintenance company’s owner, Jesse Kesler, had been working on getting a wellness check on the couple since MudCity Builders had not heard from them for weeks, Fox News reported. He said he was in contact with Arakawa every three days for about 16 years. He decided to stop by the property on Feb. 26 with the other worker, Roland Lowe Begay, to check on them. It was Kesler who made the call to 911.
“We asked law enforcement for advice on how to do it. We started the process of a wellness check,” Kesler told Fox News. “We had to involve a family member to do a wellness check. They had to have an authorization from a family member.”
“We couldn’t get hold of any family members. … We were in the process of getting hold of a family member, and it was taking too long. And finally, finally, I saw the security guard, and that’s when me and him went in,” Kesler explained.
Hackman’s daughter Leslie said that she had not ever spoken with Kesler and not one had contacted her about performing a wellness check.
Paramedics entered the home by the front door and found Arakawa dead on the floor, calling the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office for backup, following protocol.
Over 30 minutes first responders went through the home looking in every room for anyone else or signs of foul play.
During the search, one of the couple’s dogs kept running to them, barking and running off. They thought the dog wanted to play at first then realized that it wanted them to follow.
“They realized (the dog) was trying to say, ‘Hey, come over here! Come over here!’” Chief Brian Moya said.
The dog took them to a mudroom, at the other end of the home near the kitchen where they found Gene Hackman. He had shown signs of decomposition.
Gene Hackman’s cause of death was cardiovascular disease with an underlying cause of advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Arakawa died of hantavirus.
Now that the cause of death has been released, the couple’s estate is petitioning to block the release of photos, body-camera video and other documents surrounding their death.
Attorney Julia Peters filed the request due to the couple’s right to privacy.
Peters wrote, “during their lifetime, the Hackmans placed significant value on their privacy and took affirmative, vigilant steps to safeguard their privacy.”
She cited the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The state’s open records law blocks sensitive images from being accessible to the public and some medical information is not a public record under the law. However, death investigations and autopsy reports are public records for transparency and accountability.
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