New details have emerged in the mysterious deaths of acclaimed actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa after the couple was found dead at their Santa Fe, New Mexico home, Feb. 26.
Hackman died of cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease “a significant contributory factor,” according to Heather Jarrell, the chief medical investigator for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator. She told reporters at a news conference on Friday that the 95-year-old Oscar-winning actor likely died Feb. 18, about a week after his wife.
Arakawa, 65, died of natural causes, with the medical investigator ruling her cause of death to be from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare disease.
“Based on the circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that Ms. Hackman passed away first, with Feb. 11 the last time she was known to be alive,” Jarrell said Friday. There were no findings of trauma on either Hackman or his wife, nor was there any evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Jarrell added that it was “unprecedented for the Office of the Medical Investigator to make public statements about death investigations.
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“However, the circumstances surrounding these two deaths require accurate dissemination of important information,” she said.
William Morrone, chief medical examiner for Bay County & Midland County, Michigan said during a CNN interview that hantavirus was “very rare.”
“You're going to see it in New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho, California, Arizona,” Morrone said. “It's very specific to that geography and it's a virus found in deer mice – rodent population – and then it spreads to humans.”
“It's part of that geography,” he said.
A hantavirus infection follows a one to eight week exposure to excrement from infected mice, officials said. It has a 35-50% death rate in the region.
Morrone added that it was likely that after Arakawa died of hantavirus, “a spouse with Alzheimer’s would continue to move around the house not knowing that his partner was deceased.”
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