Fresh twist emerges in Gene Hackman’s death as doctor makes wild claim

A doctor’s wild claim has cast further mystery over the heartbreaking death of Gene Hackman and his wife.

A doctor claims Gene Hackman’s wife called him 24 hours after officers said she died - casting more mystery over the couple’s deaths.

Betsy Arakawa was found to have passed on February 11 from a rare rodent disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome - a week before her Oscar-winning husband passed.

But former emergency care specialist and runner of Cloudberry Health in Santa Fe, Dr Josiah Child, claims that Betsy couldn’t have died on February 11 because “she called my clinic on February 12”.

He told the Mail that Betsy called him a couple of weeks before her death to ask about getting an echocardiogram [heart scan] for her husband.

Child said Bets was not a patient of his, but one of his patients had recommended Cloudberry to her.

He said: “She made an appointment for herself for February 12. It was for something unrelated to anything respiratory.”

Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa with two of their dogs. Picture: Supplied

And just two days before she was due to see him, Betsy cancelled her appointment because her husband wasn’t well, Dr Child claims.

“The appointment wasn’t for anything related to hantavirus. We tried calling her a couple of times with no reply.”

Hantavirus spreads when exposed to rodents’ urine, droppings, and saliva, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Child has raised questions over her cause of death, linking to the mysterious call to the doctor’s office and how she sounded on the phone.

Child said he is not a hantavirus expert but most patients who have that diagnosis die in hospital.

He said: “It is surprising that Mrs Hackman spoke to my office on the phone on February 10 and again on February 12 and didn’t appear in respiratory distress.”

The bodies of The French Connection star and his wife were found on February 26th. Picture: AFP

But Dr Child isn’t the only one confused over Betsy’s hantavirus diagnosis.

Betsy’s Oscar-winning husband Hackman, who was suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s, was alone in the house for days following his wife’s death.

It is possible that he did not know of Betsy’s body in the bathroom.

He died on February 18 when the last signal from the actor’s pacemaker was recorded.

The medical examiner ruled his cause of death as hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiac disease and noted that his Alzheimer’s will have played a “significant” role in his death.

He tested negative for hantavirus, Chief Medical Investigator Dr. Heather Jarrell revealed.

Neither body was found until February 26 when a neighbourhood caretaker called 911 after finding them unresponsive at the property.

The couple was extremely private in their final years, living in a cul-de-sac of their gated community.

Hackman is survived by two daughters and a son from a previous marriage.

This story originally appeared on The Sun and is republished here with permission.