Doctor claims Gene Hackman's wife didn't know how sick she was in her last days
'I don't know whether it was because she was focusing on her husband or because it was a rapidly progressive disease'
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A doctor who oversees a clinic that was supposed to treat Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, says she may not have been aware of how ill she was before succumbing to hantavirus last month.
The mystery surrounding the deaths of the Hollywood couple took a turn earlier this week when Dr. Josiah Child revealed that Arakawa called his medical practice, Cloudberry Health, on Feb. 12 — a day after authorities speculated she had died.
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Child told Fox News that the classical pianist had booked an appointment to see a doctor on the 12th, but cancelled her consultation because “her husband was ill.”
“(Arakawa) had actually made an appointment to have an initial visit with one of our doctors on the 12th,” Child said. “She called on the 10th saying that her husband was ill or wanted to take care of her husband. She wanted to cancel that appointment. She called back on the 12th (looking for) advice. She said, ‘I have some congestion and I just want some advice. What can I do for it?’ She had no shortness of breath or chest pain or fever or anything like that. Our receptionist spoke to the doctor and the doctor said, ‘Well, I’ve never met her. We have to have an initial appointment.'”
Arakawa was pencilled in to see a doctor at 1 p.m. on the 12th, but she never showed up and calls to her cell phone went unanswered.
“If we had known the patient and known that they had a medical condition or something, then if we try and call them and they didn’t call back, we would be more aggressive about finding out what’s going on,” said Child. “But in this case, I think, since the doctor had never seen the patient, it was unclear whether maybe she found another doctor or went somewhere else … We assumed since she’d never come before that she’d gone somewhere else or maybe to her previous doctor.”
Child speculated that Arakawa may not have known how rapidly her sickness was spreading.
“I don’t know whether it was because she was focusing on her husband or because it was a rapidly progressive disease, or she was just one of those people that didn’t really feel a lot of discomfort. No one will ever know,” he said. “But for some reason she didn’t recognize that she was becoming very ill with the second phase of hantavirus, which invades the lungs.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, hantavirus is a rare infectious disease that begins with flu-like symptoms and progresses rapidly to more severe illness and in some cases death.
Earlier this month, New Mexico’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Heather Jarrell, said the cause of death for Arakawa, 65, was hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
Jarrell said the symptoms consist of fever, muscle aches, cough, vomiting and diarrhea that can progress into heart or lung failure and comes anywhere from one to eight weeks after exposure to excrement from “a particular mouse species.”
The mortality rate for the particular strain of hantavirus Arakawa was afflicted with, Jarrell noted, was 38 to 50%.
Arakawa was discovered in a bathroom in the couple’s home on Feb. 26. An opened orange prescription bottle was observed on the countertop, and pills were strewn around it. A deceased Kelpie mix dog (which was originally misidentified as a German Shepherd) was located inside a “closed crate,” with two other dogs found alive on the property.
Jarrell said the pills were thyroid medication which were being taken as prescribed.
The cause of death for Hackman, 95, who died days after Arakawa, was listed as a result of severe heart disease with advanced Alzheimer’s disease playing a “significant” contributing factor.
She added that it was conceivable that Hackman did not know his wife had died inside their home.
“It’s quite possible he was not aware she was deceased,” Jarrell said.
“Mr. Hackman showed evidence of advanced Alzheimer’s disease,” Jarrell concluded. “He was in a very poor state of health. He had significant heart disease, and I think ultimately that’s what resulted in his death.”
In its report, police said Arakawa’s body showed “obvious signs of death, body decomposition, bloating in her face and mummification in both hands and feet.”
Both had been deceased “for quite a while.”
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Initially, Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza said that Arakawa’s last known communication came on the 11th of February when she emailed her massage therapist in the morning, and was spotted at a farmer’s market and a CVS drugstore later that afternoon.
But the sheriff’s department altered its original conclusion that she died sometime that day when it confirmed that Arakawa made the call to Cloudberry Health on the 12th.
“A total of three calls were made that morning, all to the medical centre. One incoming call was made to Mrs. Hackman from the same medical centre that afternoon,” the department told Fox News.
Meanwhile, a report obtained by the Associated Press from the state Department of Agriculture’s veterinary lab confirmed that the kelpie mix named Zinna that was found inside the crate likely died of dehydration and starvation.
The couple’s surviving dogs, Bear and Nikita, have been placed with new owners.
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