Gene Hackman Survived in Home Alone With Advanced Alzheimer’s for a Week After Wife’s Death
Gene Hackman died of severe cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributory factor, officials in New Mexico announced on Friday, and the 95-year-old Hollywood icon survived in the home he shared with his wife, Betsy Hackman, for a week after she died in their living room of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe respiratory illness caused by viruses transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents, officials said.
Hackman, a two-time Academy Award winner whose Hollywood career spanned four decades and his wife of 30 years, classical pianist Betsy Hackman, were found Feb. 26 in separate rooms of their home during a wellness check; neither showed signs of external trauma, police said, but Hackman’s pacemaker had sent its last record on Feb. 17, suggesting he had been dead for at least one week before his body was discovered slumped over in a mud room off the couple’s kitchen. Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said at the time that he didn’t believe there was foul play in the deaths of the couple, who had lived a private life together in the house on Old Sunset Trail Road after withdrawing from Hollywood life in 2004.
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Gene Hackman’s autopsy showed signs of advanced Alzheimer’s disease and officials indicated that he may not have known that his wife had died while he survived in their house for at least a week. Officials said it’s challenging to know much about the legendary actor’s mental state before or after his wife’s death but said that he was in a “very poor state of health” and there was no food in his stomach. He was not dehydrated at the time of his death.
“There is no reliable scientific method to accurately determine the exact time or date of death,” Dr. Heather Jarrell, chief medical examiner at the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, said at a Friday press conference outside the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office. “Mr. Hackman’s initial pacemaker data revealed cardiac activity on Feb. 17, with subsequent pacemaker interrogation demonstrating an abnormal rhythm of atrial fibrillation on Feb. 18. Based on the circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that Ms. Hackman passed away first — with Feb. 11 being the last time that she was known to be alive.”
At a Friday press conference outside the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office, Jarrell announced the findings of autopsies performed on both Hackmans. Jarrell said that the autopsy examination of Gene Hackman’s body showed severe heart disease, including evidence of multiple heart surgeries as well as evidence of prior heart attacks. The actor’s autopsy also showed severe changes to his kidneys due to chronic high blood pressure.
An examination of his brain showed advanced Alzheimer’s disease, as well as blood vessel changes in the brain, secondary to chronic high blood pressure, Jarrell told reporters on Friday.
At least a week before what is believed to be the date of Gene Hackman’s death, Betsy Hackman died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is a severe respiratory illness caused by hantaviruses, a family of viruses that are transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents. Symptoms of hantavirus typically appear one to eight weeks after exposure; early symptoms may resemble or be confused with influenza. The disease can progress rapidly and bring on severe respiratory distress, low blood pressure and organ failure.
On the afternoon of Feb. 11, Betsy Hackman was seen on surveillance cameras shopping at a CVS, a local market and at a pet food store, Sheriff Mendoza told reporters, adding that the emails on her computer are unopened after what appears to be a final conversation with a massage therapist on that date and that this is the final day Betsy Hackman communicated with anyone outside of her home.
“There was no additional outgoing communication from her or known activity after Feb. 11, 2025,” he said, adding that they were working with state police “to get the information from [cell] phones.”
Jarrell said on Friday that Gene Hackman’s autopsy showed no findings concerning hantavirus infection.
At the press conference, officials noted that Betsy Hackman should not be referred to with her maiden name of Arakawa, correcting previous reports.
One of the couple’s three dogs, an Australian Kelpie mix named Zinnia, was found dead in a crate placed in a room off of the bathroom where Betsy Hackman’s body was discovered. Zinnia had been in for surgery recently, and officials said they believe this explains why the pup was kept crated and away from the other two animals in the home, the couple’s two German Shepherds.
This investigation into the deaths of the couple began on Feb. 26 with the discovery of the Hackmans and their dog at the residence. Reports indicated that Gene Hackman had not spoken with one of his daughters in months and that Betsy had halted weekly calls with her mother in Hawaii.
The mortality rate of the hantavirus strain in the American southwest is about 38 to 50 percent, Dr Erin Phipps, the state public health veterinarian with the New Mexico Department of Health, told reporters at the press conference on Friday, adding that the virus is not transmissible from person to person in the U.S.
Hackman, who played gritty and characters with edgy intensity, won a best actor Oscar for his work in William Friedkin‘s 1971 thriller The French Connection and earned a supporting trophy for his portrayal of a sadistic sheriff in Clint Eastwood‘s Unforgiven in 1992. He is also remembered for comedic turns in classics like Young Frankenstein (1974), Superman (1978), as bad guy Lex Luthor; Get Shorty (1995), playing a sleazy movie producer; The Birdcage (1996), as a right-wing senator and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), as the patriarch of a dysfunctional family of geniuses. His final film role was in 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport; after this, he spent his golden years enjoying a private life with Betsy and their beloved dogs, writing novels and investing in local Sante Fe businesses.
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