'Most troubling' thing about Gene Hackman's death singled out by expert on CNN
A veteran homicide investigator highlighted "one of the most troubling" aspects about the scene at the late actor Gene Hackman's home.
Joseph Scott Morgan, a longtime death investigator who now teaches applied forensics at Jacksonville State University, appeared Friday morning on "CNN News Central" to discuss evidence after the 95-year-old Oscar winner and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead this week at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
"You're going to have to dig deep and take your time with this case, because in my opinion, this is very, very complex," Morgan said.
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The Santa Fe County sheriff said the couple's bodies showed signs of mummification, which indicates they may have been dead for possibly a couple of weeks, but Morgan said autopsies would be necessary to determine when and how they had died.
"A lot of the things that would be obvious as far as trauma goes, you know, initially, particularly at the scene where you've got poor lighting and those sorts of things, you might not pick up on it as quickly," Morgan said. "It's going to be to their advantage, and they've done that. That's probably occurring today, those bodies are actually at the [medical examiner's] office under the best type of circumstances to examine remains. Secondly, you know, I begin to think about what they're going to be tasked with relative to kind of running down those things that are unseen."
"It's my opinion that they should do a very broad spectrum toxicology report, and this issue of carbon monoxide inhalation, perhaps, has come up time and time again," he added. "They're going to do a carboxyhemoglobin level on all parties concerned here, and in addition to having autopsies performed, which should involve head-to-toe, full-body X-rays, they're going to do a necropsy hopefully on this canine that is deceased to the point of mummification, though we have to understand that Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a very arid environment, and you only get mummification most of the time in very arid environments where you're absent any kind of significant humidity, and plus you're in the winter months now, too. It makes it particularly dry in that environment, so there's a lot going on here."
Morgan was troubled that the door was standing open, although he didn't explain what specifically bothered him about the house not being secured.
"You know, reflectively, I'm thinking about these medications that were found scattered upon the vanity in the bathroom, this toppled heater, and one of the most troubling things about this is that this house was not secured," Morgan said. "The door was actually open, and for me, as a death investigator, that's significant, and hopefully they will be exploring that very, very deeply."