Gene Hackman’s time of death could be “impossible” to determine, a medical examiner has claimed.
Chief Medical Examiner for Connecticut Dr James Gill – who isn’t working directly on the case – has stressed the importance of finding more clues to how Gene and his wife Betsy Arakawa died at their Santa Fe home, along with one of their dogs.
Hollywood veteran Gene, 95, and Betsy, 64, are thought to have been dead for at least 10 days before they were discovered. But Dr Gill explained: “Once you get to that mummification stage, there’s nothing to be able to distinguish the two deaths timewise. “Generally, dry environments will cause mummification to occur more quickly than in a non-dry environment,” he told People magazine. Forensic pathologist Judy Melinek added to the publication: “Once the body is decomposed, it’s a lot harder to do.”
While early indicators like rigor mortis and body temperature can help to establish a time of death in the first stages, that’s a lot harder to deal with once the bodies are actively decomposing.
Betsy was found on the bathroom floor of their home next to a fallen space heater, while Gene’s body was discovered in the mudroom. Their dog Zinna had been crated at the time and is thought to have died from dehydration or starvation.
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So far, carbon monoxide poisoning has been ruled out as a cause of death. A small gas leak was discovered in the couple’s home, but an investigation concluded it was too small to have killed the couple.
Now investigators must rely on more circumstantial evidence to determine time of death, including witnesses who last saw the couple alive and when mail began to pile up at their home.