Gene Hackman, wife and dog are found dead at home

[Chuchoter]

Legendary Hollywood star Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa have been found dead in their Santa Fe home.
The couple, who had been married since 1991, were found alongside their dog. Local media has reported that no foul play is suspected.
Hackman had just turned 95 in late January. He was known for being a reclusive person, having not starred in a movie since 2004, when he played Monroe 'Eagle' Cole in the political satire Welcome to Mooseport.
Born in California on January 30 1930, the actor had enlisted in the army after lying about his age at 16, serving for four-and-a-half years.
After moving back to California following his military service, he decided to pursue acting after briefly living in New York.
RIP

Superb actor.

i find it very unusual and sad

2 men arrived to do work at the property and saw a body. They called the police. Police arrived to do a welfare check. It’s still a welfare check because even though it must have been obvious it was a body, it’s got to be officially confirmed.

I don’t think there’s a suggestion that Betsy didn’t allow Gene’s kids into the house, is there?

His kids were only a few years younger than her. Other reports have suggested they got updates from her on him by phone or email. If you emailed or called and didn’t get a reply, would you jump to the assumption that something was badly wrong, or would you try again in a few days?

As for popping by, I doubt his kids even live in the same state.

So sad but having had a parent with dementia I can totally see how this can happen. Had anything happened to my mum, my dad would have known that something was not right. He would not have been able to make a phone call to raise the alarm - even picking up the phone and pressing one button to ring a pre-programmed number was beyond him. The house where they lived though is in a village and all he would have had to do is walk outside and someone would have found him and raised the alarm that way.

But my dad was 15 years younger than Gene Hackman and apart from the dementia, mobile. Able to leave the house and walk up the road. This property appears to have been very rural/remote, nobody is going to just be walking past and seeing a distressed elderly gent in the garden. She would have been the one making sure he took his medication, feeding him. It's a very sad story all round.

One strange thing about all this is that one of his daughters thought they died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Maybe she didn’t know about his Alzheimer’s.

nobody is going to just be walking past and seeing a distressed elderly gent in the garden

GH wasn’t found in the garden, he was found indoors.

Surely that assumption was because they'd both been found dead, plus the dog. That's unusual and you wouldn't assume his alzheimers was relevant.

Yes I know. But what I meant was that even if he had managed to get out of the house - and often when you have someone with dementia doors have to be kept locked - there is nobody walking past to spot him.

I think it’s more unusual his own daughter didn’t consider Alzheimer’s as the reason her 95 year old father died.

It is awful with all the private details all over the news.

I find it odd that in life privacy and confidentiality applies to any medical issues, yet once dead we are told everything from the virus thst killed her to his advanced state of dementia and exactly when his pacemaker stopped.

Why can't we have the same privacy as when alive? Obviously different with any criminal involvement but natural causes should be kept confidential imo.

This was said very early on by the DD (ie before any analysis was done) and was a reasonable possibility for two people in a house dying at the same time (as might have been thought initially) but in different locations.

Even when found dead with another person? They wouldn't have known at that time that they'd died at different times. You'd surely think a specific incident had killed them both together.

What a sad and confused 6 days he would have had

AFAIK, Alzheimer’s is rarely listed as the primary cause of death, whether the DD knew about it but didn’t want to say anything, or didn’t know about it.

GH’s cause of death was cardiac, I believe, with AD as a contributing factor.

I would have thought carbon monoxide was a reasonable thing to initially think when 2 people (and a dog) died without any visible injuries etc.

I assume with advanced dementia he might have found it unsettling to have cleaners etc in the house, or they wanted privacy as didn’t want people to see him in that state

I feel very sad for the dog :-(

I dunno what to think about how socially isolated they were. Only found because contractor lookd thru a window.

Yes - cleaners and carers coming and going, or any different people, can be very unsettling for someone with mid-end stage alzheimers.

Also agree that it is not unusual for it not to be the main cause of death given. For my dad, it was sepsis, dementia listed as a secondary factor.

Why would you assume Alzheimer's killed the 95 year old dad, his 65 year old wife and their dog all at the same time? That's the least likely explanation. Carbon monoxide is much more obvious.
Now that we know Gene died a week after his wife it makes more sense.

Carbon monoxide was not the obvious answer, given the fact they were said to have been found in different places from the outset and given the style of large open-plan house rich people live in in New Mexico.

The police considered the possibility of carbon monoxide at a very early stage of the investigation as they got the fire department to come out and check the property for signs of a leak. Obviously they didn't find one and it was ruled out but it will likely have been communicated to the family by the officers liaising with them as part of keeping them informed , e.g., "we don't know what happened, we're investigating, right now your father and step-mother are still at the property and the fire department are checking for a carbon monoxide leak". Family then interprets that as carbon monoxide being a possible cause and includes it in their statement to try and quell speculation about murder-suicide.

Sure, it had to be considered as a possibility. But circumstances made it pretty unlikely from the outset.

I can see how relatives would want to hold onto what seems like the "least worst" explanation of an incident like carbon monoxide poisoning, rather than anything more sinister or more tragic.

In the beginning, my thought was a carbon monoxide leak, it seemed the most obvious conclusion. I’m not sure why anyone would have had any other initial response to it all.

And lots of people don’t speak to their parents that often. Sure, lots do a daily phone call. But lots don’t. And lots of parents don’t want a daily call. I’m not sure that I want to blame the kids for that really.

Lived a secluded quiet life in Santa Fe New Mexico. Perhaps she didn't email or phone much so no one thought about them. Presumably he didn't/couldn't communicate so her sudden death precipitated his. He may not even been aware of her death. Terrible end for both of them.

I’m not sure why anyone would have had any other initial response to it all.

I was pretty sure it wasn't from the outset because of the separate rooms. That's not how people tend to die from CO poisoning, they tend either to be obvious suicides (in the car in a locked garage) or asleep in bed. Nor did it match their lifestyle - wealthy, nice climate, outdoorsy city, big houses, open-plan living.

They did appear to be very isolated, which surprised me.