Actor Gene Hackman likely did not know his wife had been lying dead inside their home for a week because he suffered from advanced Alzheimer’s disease, a coroner has revealed. The Oscar-winning actor, 95, his wife Betsy Arakawa, 64, and one of their dogs were found dead on February 26 in separate rooms of their Santa Fe home. The couple died seven days apart from natural causes.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Doctor Heather Jarrell, Chief Medical Examiner for New Mexico, revealed on Friday, local time, that Arawaka died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome — a rare flu-like infectious disease that can be contracted after contact with rodents and rodent excrement. Hackman died of cardiovascular disease, with advanced Alheimer’s disease as a significant contributing factor to his death. “He was in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s and it is quite possible he was not aware she was deceased,” Jarrell told reporters on Friday.
Arakawa is believed to have died around February 11, authorities said, citing the date of her last email. Jarrell determined Hackman died on February 18, based on his pacemaker activity. Hantavirus is a rare disease in the United States, with most cases concentrated in the western states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah.
In northern New Mexico the virus is predominantly spread by droppings and urine of deer mice. The virus is often transmitted through the air when people sweep out sheds or clean closets where mice have bee.