Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa were found dead inside their home on February 26. The famed actor and his musician wife’s life and death are slowly coming into focus, but there are still more questions than answers. The couple’s mysterious deaths don’t yet have a cause, but investigators are getting closer to pinpointing exactly when the couple died. A medical device has helped investigators figure out when the 95-year-old actor died, but the time of his wife’s mysterious death is a bit more unclear.

Gene Hackman’s pacemaker gives clues about his sudden death

Gene Hackman’s daughters said that their father was in “good health” before his passing. She claims he hadn’t had surgery and regularly exercised. Despite his good health, he was outfitted with a medical device to keep his heart in check. That device is shining some light on when Hackman and his partner may have died.

According to Page Six, a pacemaker that was fitted in Hackman’s chest recorded its last event on February 17, 2025. According to a spokesperson, the evidence leads investigators to believe the famed actor died on that day. A pacemaker is a device used to maintain the heart’s rhythm. It also records events like irregular heartbeats. It does not appear that Arakawa had any such medical device. The last reading from Hackman’s pacemaker suggests he died more than a week before his body was discovered.

Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa had grown reclusive in their final years

Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were married for well over 30 years at the time of their deaths. The couple always preferred a quiet life, leaving Hollywood and settling in New Mexico, where privacy was abundant. While the couple had friends in the Santa Fe area, they had grown more reclusive during the pandemic, and that reclusiveness also extended to family.

A resident spoke out following the discovery of the couple’s body, revealing that Arakawa was especially cautious about getting sick and potentially passing it on to Hackman. She was more than 30 years his junior. The maintenance team revealed they rarely saw the couple in the last several years. Their caution around face-to-face interactions would be almost understandable, but they weren’t reaching out to family members via phone, either.

In a conversation with the Daily Mail, one of Hackman’s daughters described her relationship with her father as “close” before revealing she hadn’t seen or spoken to her father in a few months, despite his birthday passing less than a month before his death. Arakawa wasn’t connecting with family either. A source connected to Arakawa’s mother told the Daily Mail that Arakawa typically called her mother, who was diagnosed with dementia, every month. The schedule was regular until October 2024. The calls stopped, leading to some concern. No police report was ever filed, though.

It could be several weeks before further information on the deaths is made available, but as of now, it appears early reports that a carbon monoxide leak was to blame were false.