Gene Hackman‘s two surviving dogs avoided the fate of a third found dead near the mummified actor and his late wife thanks to a doggy door.
The Oscar winner, 95, and his wife Betsy Arakawa, 65, were found dead alongside a third dog, Zinna, in their $3.8 million Santa Fe home last week. The cause of their deaths remains unknown pending toxicology reports.
Authorities did not perform a necropsy on Zinna, who was found in a kennel in a bathroom closet about 10 to 15 feet from Arakawa’s partially mummified remains.
The couple’s German shepherd, named Bear, survived along with a second dog named Nikita, according to Joey Padilla, owner of the Santa Fe Tails pet care, where Hackman and Arakawa often boarded their dogs. Both are being cared for.
ABC News reported Wednesday that a doggy door meant the other two dogs were able to come and go from the home where Hackman and Arakawa likely lay dead for nine days until their discovery on February 28.
That likely gave them access to food and water outside that kept them alive.
One of the surviving dogs was found near Arakawa’s body and the other outside the couple’s home.
Zinna, the dog that died ‘was always attached to Betsy at the hip and it was a beautiful relationship,’ Padilla told the Associated Press.
‘Zinna went from being a returned shelter dog to this incredible companion under Betsy’s hand.’
It remains unclear why Zinna was found dead in a closet while the other two dogs survived. Pills were found scattered close to Arakawa’s body but it’s unclear if the pet ingested those or was killed in a different way.
‘I will be holding on to them until I get word on what Betsy’s wishes for these dogs are,’ Padilla told the outlet.
Padilla, who used to see the couple often before the pandemic, added that the dogs were ‘Betsy’s babies.’
He said after the pandemic he stopped seeing Hackman because Arakawa kept him away from people to protect his health.
Arakawa last stopped at the boarding center in January, with Padilla saying she appeared the same as always.
The mystery of the couple’s deaths has only deepened as police said they have found no evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The two bodies both have tested negative for carbon monoxide, and no gas leaks were discovered in or around the home.
Arakawa’s body was found with an open prescription bottle and pills scattered on the bathroom countertop, while Hackman’s remains were found in the home’s entryway.
Hackman’s glasses and cane were on the floor beside him, suggesting he’d fallen just before his death.
It is still unclear who died first – Hackman or Arakawa.
Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said there were no signs of foul play or external trauma on the couple’s bodies. The deaths were originally deemed suspicious enough to warrant a full investigation but cops no longer believe anyone else was involved.
Hackman’s pacemaker last recorded him alive on February 17 – nine days before his body was found.
Police do not suspect foul play, despite the front door being found ‘ajar.’ There were no signs of forced entry into the home.
‘I think I’m pretty confident that there is no foul play just based on the lack of evidence,’ Mendoza later told Today. ‘But, of course, we’re not ruling that out.’
The case is shrouded in the kind of intrigue reserved for Hackman’s detective thriller novels and has garnered international attention – with many wondering how their deaths went unnoticed for so long.
Neighbors in their gated private community off a winding canyon road five miles outside of Santa Fe told The New York Times that despite living with the celebrity couple for years, most of them never even caught a glimpse of them.
Hackman was in a mud room off the kitchen. His sunglasses and cane were on the floor and it has been suggested the actor had suffered a fall.
Hackman, a two-time Oscar winner with an estimated net worth of $80million, just turned 95 in late January. He became a recluse in the last 20 years of his life, after retiring from acting in 2004.
He moved to New Mexico shortly after making a movie there in the 1980s and loved the quiet pace of life and the fact locals left him in peace.
Friends occasionally shared glimpses of his post-acting life, including social media shots of fishing expeditions – while paying tribute to his silver screen triumphs. He would also occasionally be spotted pedaling around Santa Fe on a bicycle.
The gruff-but-beloved Hackman was among the finest actors of his generation, appearing as villains, heroes and antiheroes in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.
He was a five-time Oscar nominee who won for The French Connection in 1972 and Unforgiven two decades later. His death comes just four days before this year’s ceremony.
Hackman met Arakawa, a classically trained pianist who grew up in Hawaii, when she was working part-time at a California gym in the mid-1980s, the New York Times reported in 1989. They soon moved in together, and by the end of the decade had decamped to Santa Fe.
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