Gene Hackman Died From Alzheimer’s & Severe Heart Disease After His Wife Died Several Days Before
A February 27 autopsy of Gene Hackman reveals the 95-year-old Oscar winner died of a combination of “advanced Alzheimer’s disease” and severe heart disease, the New Mexico Chief Medical Examiner announced today.
“It is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Hackman died on February 18,” Dr. Heather Jarrell said in a press conference with Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza and other county officials. “He was in very poor health,” Dr. Jarrell also noted of Hackman, adding that there was evidence that he hadn’t eaten for a number of days. Ms. Arakawa is assumed to have died on or around February 11, officials estimated.
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“The cause of death for Mr. Gene Hackman, aged 95 years, is hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributory factor,” Dr. Jarrell explained in greater detail. “Autopsy examination and a full body post mortem CT examination demonstrated no acute findings of internal or external trauma, and showed severe heart disease, including multiple surgical procedures involving the heart, evidence of prior heart attacks and severe changes of the kidneys due to chronic high blood pressure.”
Hackman’s heart issues were well-known and the actor had spoken about them on numerous occasions before retiring from public life in the early 2000s. Last week it was unveiled by Santa Fe County Sheriff’s department that Hackman’s pacemaker appeared to cease functioning around February 17 — a timeline that tracks with the details offered Friday.
Today, New Mexico health authorities also said that Hackman’s wife Betsy Arakawa seems to have passed away from Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. A rare-ish disease, Hantavirus is spread mainly by rodents’ feces, and is not spread from person-to-person, according to the CDC. Hackman did not have Hantavirus all tests have shown.
Clearly aware of the vast international interest in the passing of the acclaimed actor and his spouse, Dr. Jarrell ended her very public presentation this afternoon with a call for discretion. “I’d like to kindly ask for everyone to please respect the privacy that Mr. Gene Hackman, Miss Betsy Hackman, and their family and friends, deserve,” she said before handing the press conference over to state public health veterinarian Dr Aaron Phipps and the sheriff.
In that, the sheriff also revealed Friday that Arakawa was out and about just hours before she likely passed away. Citing security camera footage and more, Sheriff Mendoza outlined today that having gone to a Santa Fe pharmacy a couple days beforehand, Arakawa on February 11 went shopping at a local Sprouts Farmers Market around 3:30 pm MT and entered the subdivision near the couple’s home around 5:30 p.m. MT. “Numerous emails were unopened on her computer on February 11,” Mendoza said. “There was no additional outgoing communication from her or known activity after February 11, 2025.”
The couple and one of their dogs were discovered dead and mummified in separate rooms of their Santa Fe residence at 1:45 p.m. MT on February 26, police said at the time. Big pet people, especially dogs, the couple had been married since 1991 and had lived very privately in New Mexico for decades. First discovered by maintenance workers on the property, Hackman and 63-year-old Arakawa were found on the floor of their gated community home in different rooms.
A police affidavit from late on February 26 stated that as well as the bodies in the Hackman residence, there was “another healthy dog near the deceased female, a deceased dog laying 10-15 feet from the deceased female in a closet of the bathroom, the heater being moved, the pill bottle being opened and pills scattered next to the female, the male decedent being located in a separate room of the residence, and no obvious signs of a gas leak.”
The pills discovered on the scene turned out to be Diltiazem, the Tylenol and the thyroid medication.
Sheriff Mendoza told assembled media that the probe into the Hackmans’ deaths are still ongoing, for the time being, indicating that while police are close to being finished, he noted there are some “loose ends that we need to tie up.”
Out of the public eye for most of the past 20 years, Hackman won Oscars for The French Connection (1971) and Clint Eastwood‘s Unforgiven (1992), and was Oscar-nominated for his performances in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and Mississippi Burning (1988).
In addition, Hackman was reknowned for his performance as arch-villian Lex Luthor in Superman (1978) and its sequel Superman II Along with the seminal sports movie Hoosiers (1986), Hackman also starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s acclaimed The Conversation (1974, the sequel by any other name Enemy of the State (1998) with Will Smith.
As well as star turns in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and with Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide (1995), Hackman starred in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Scarecrow (1972), ), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Under Fire (1983), Power (1986), Loose Cannons (1990), The Firm (1993), The Quick and the Dead (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Behind Enemy Lines (2001), and Runaway Jury (2003). His very last on-screen appearance was in 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport.
As he should have, Hackman received a stand alone tribute at the 97th Academy Awards on March 2. Fellow Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, who appeared in Unforgiven and Under Suspicion with Hackman, came on stage at the Dolby Theatre to speak of the loss of his “dear friend.”
“Like everyone who ever shared a scene with him, I learned he was a generous performer and a man whose gifts elevated everyone’s work,” Freedman said, moving many to in the Dolby and at home to tears.
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