Gene Hackman, his wife and his dog found dead in their house in New Mexico – National

Oscar winner Gene hackmanHis wife and one of their dogs had apparently died for a while before a maintenance worker discovered their bodies at the home of Santa Fe, said the investigators.

Hackman, 95, was found dead on Wednesday in an entrance and his 65 -year -old wife, Betsy Arakawawas found in a bathroom next to a radiator, wrote detectives from the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Bureau in an affidavit of search mandate. There was an open prescription bottle and pills scattered on a counter near Arakawa.

Denise Avila, spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said that there was no indication that they had been killed or injured.

New Mexico Gas Co. has tested gas pipes in and around the house after the discovery of the bodies, depending on the mandate.

At the time, he found no sign of a problem and the fire service found no sign of carbon monoxide or poisoning leak. A detective wrote that there was no obvious sign of gas leak, but he noted that people exposed to gas leaks or carbon monoxide may not show signs of poisoning.

The gruff but beloved hackman was among the most accomplished actors of his generation, appearing as bad guys, heroes and anti-heroes in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.

“He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but for us, he was still just dad and grandfather,” his daughters and granddaughters said on Thursday. “We will miss a lot and will be devastated by the loss.”

According to the affidavit of the search mandate, a maintenance worker said that the house front door was opened when he arrived to do routine work on Wednesday, and he called the police after finding the bodies.

But during a call to 911, the maintenance worker said he was unable to enter the interior when the operator asked if the inhabitants of the house were breathing.

“I have no idea,” said the guardian of the subdivision. “I am not inside the house. It’s closed. It is locked. I can’t enter. But I can see that it is lying on the window of the window.

He and another worker later declared to the authorities that they had rarely seen the owners and that their last contact with them had been about two weeks ago.

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Hackman seemed to have fallen, observed a deputy. A cane was nearby.

A dead German shepherd was found in a bathroom closet near Arakawa, police said. Two healthy dogs were found on the property – one inside and one outside.

The results of the autopsies carried out on the two bodies are not yet available, said sheriff managers, noting that the results of carbon monoxide and toxicology tests are pending.

The Affidavit of a search mandate suggests that the police seem to have a work theory that “a kind of gas poisoning” has happened, but that she did not know yet and that nothing excludes nothing, said law professor at Loyola Marymount University, Laurie Levenson.

“They have no clear evidence that it is a type of homicide, but they ask for blunt instruments or other weapons that could be used,” said Levenson, who has no connection with the investigation. “It doesn’t look like a sort of planned double-suicide either.”

Professor Jeffrey Bellin, Professor of the Faculty of Law of William & Mary, said that the request for a search mandate was somewhat unusual because the investigators who generally deposit that a specific crime was committed. In this case, no alleged crime has been mentioned, said Bellin.

The police tend to overestimate what they know, but it is the opposite, said Bellin, who is not linked to the investigation either.

“It simply seemed to me very careful in a way that the affidavits of the justification for the search are often not,” he said.

“The unfair game is not suspected as a factor in these deaths at the moment. However, (the) exact cause of death has not been determined, “said Santa Fe Sheriff’s Bureau a declaration to CBS News.

“This is an active and underway investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff,” added the press release.

Hackman appeared regularly on the Hollywood lists of greatest American actors of the 20th century. He could play virtually any type of role, the bad guy in the comic strip Lex Luthor Superman to a coach to find a takeover in the sentimental favorite Hoosiers.

Hackman was a five -time Oscar candidate who won the best actor in a leading role for French connection in 1972 and the best actor in a support role for Unforgiven Two decades later. His death occurs four days before this year’s ceremony.

Tributes quickly sank from Hollywood.

“There was no actor thinner than Gene”, Clint Eastwood, Hackman Unforgiven The co-star and director, said in a statement. “Intense and instinctive. Never a false note. He was also a dear friend who I will miss a lot.

“The loss of a great artist, both for mourning and celebration: Gene Hackman, a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and his complexity,” said director Francis Ford Coppola, who led the 1974 The conversation With Hackman, written on Instagram.

Hackman met Arakawa, a classic pianist who grew up in Hawaii, while working part -time in a California gymnasium in the mid -1980s. They quickly moved together and moved to Santa Fe at the end of the decade.

Their southwest style ranch on Old Sunset Trail is on a hill in a closed community with a view of the rocky mountains. The sprawling house of four rooms on 6 acres (2.4 hectares) was built in 1997 and had an estimated market value just over 4 million dollars, according to the files of the Land Tax of the County of Santa Fe.

Hackman and his wife also had a more modest house next to it.

Hackman also co-wrote three novels, starting with the Swashbuckler, “Wake of the Perdido Star”, with Daniel Lenihan in 1999, according to publisher Simon & Schuster. He then wrote only two, ending with “Pursuit” in 2013, about a police officer at the tail of a predator.

During his first two decades in New Mexico, Hackman was often seen in the historic capital of the State, known as an artist’s enclave, tourist destination and retirement for celebrities.

He sat on the board of directors of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum from 1997 to 2004, the museum said in a press release.

In recent years, it has been much less visible, even if the most banal outings have drawn the attention of the press. There were articles about him that attended a show in a center of performing arts in 2018, as well as pumping gas, doing garden work and obtaining a chicken sandwich at Wendy’s in 2023.

Aside from appearances during the awards salons, he was rarely seen in the Hollywood social circuit and retired to act approximately 20 years ago. It was the rare Hollywood retirement that really lasted.

Hackman had three children from a previous wedding. He and Arakawa had no children together but were known to have German shepherds.

Hackman said to movie magazine Empire in 2020 that he and Arakawa liked to watch DVDs she rented.

“We love the simple stories that some of the small films on a budget manage to produce,” he said.

The writers of the associated press Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona; Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles; Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix; Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; And Sylvia Hui in London contributed.

—The Global News additive files