Police release emergency phone call from when Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead

The actor Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and their German Shepherd dog were sadly found dead in their home. The police have released the emotional emergency phone call from the moment when Gene Hackman and his wife’s bodies were discovered.

An anonymous caretaker was doing routine maintenance work at Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa’s property in the countryside just north of Santa Fe. Workers hadn’t seen the couple in two weeks. The caretakers rarely communicated with the couple in person, and usually spoke to Arakawa over text.

On the afternoon of Wednesday 28th February, one maintenance worker noticed the couple’s bodies and phoned the police. He saw Arakawa’s body through a window.

He said on the phone: “I think we just found a deceased person inside the house… I can’t go in, but I see she’s laying on the floor.”

He asked the emergency services to “send someone up here real quick”.

Gene Hackman in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
(Credit: Warner Bros.)

The emergency services asked the caretaker if the people inside the house showed any signs of waking up. The caretaker kept replying “no”. He said, “They’re not moving. Just send somebody up here.”

The police asked the caller if he knew the ages and genders of the “patients”. The caretaker couldn’t answer many of the questions.

The caller seems to have been crying. While the emergency services called for the paramedics, he kept saying “d*mn”. Gene Hackman’s two surviving dogs were barking in the background of the phone call.

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Arakawa’s body was found on the floor in the bathroom, close to scattered pills and a space heater. The dead dog was sadly in a cupboard nearby. Police found Gene Hackman in the mudroom – a space next to the kitchen for leaving dirty shoes. The Santa Fe Sherrif told Sky the couple might have been dead “for a couple of weeks”.

The application for the search warrant said Betsy Arakawa’s body “showed obvious signs of death, body decomposition, bloating in her face and mummification in both hands and feet.” Gene Hackman’s body was “similar and consistent with the female decedent”. There weren’t any signs of external injuries. Firefighters haven’t found any indications of a gas leak yet.

Featured image by Dave Lewis/Shutterstock.