Actor Gene Hackman’s cause of death was a form of heart disease, with Alzheimer’s as a significant contributor, and his wife died of a rare virus typically carried by rodents, New Mexico officials revealed Friday—offering more details on the unexplained deaths.
Actor Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa pose for a portrait in 1986 in Los Angeles, California. ... [+]
Dr. Heather Jarrell, chief medical examiner in the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, said Hackman, 95, “was in a very poor state of health, he had significant heart disease”—specifically, hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease—and she believed that is “ultimately that is what resulted in his death.”
Jarrell said Arakawa, 65, died of hantavirus, which is a potentially fatal virus most often transmitted by mice that Jarrell said begins with flu-like symptoms before developing quickly into fluid in one’s lungs that can be fatal (the Mayo Clinic calls Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome rare).
Officials said further tests on Hackman’s pacemaker showed it last recorded data on Feb. 18, meaning that is likely when he died, and it is likely his wife died first, with the last known date of her being alive being Feb. 11.
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said it is likely that Hackman was home with his deceased wife for a week and that because of his “advanced” Alzheimer’s, “it’s quite possible that he was not aware that she was deceased.”
The couple’s official causes of death were revealed one week after Mendoza said both of them tested negative for carbon monoxide in initial, expedited tests amid suspicion that may have played a role in the mysterious deaths.
This story is developing and will be updated.
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Arakawa’s official cause of death was hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare disease caused by hantavirus. Hantavirus infection—normally caused by contact with mice or other rodents—is characterized by “flu-like symptoms” and can progress to “shortness of breath and cardiac or heart failure and lung failure” in a one- to eight-week period after exposure to excrements from rodents that carry the virus, Jarrell said. Hantavirus can be fatal, with the mortality rate of the strain found in the Southwest at 38% to 50%. The strain of hantavirus found in New Mexico is found primarily in deer mice and can be transmitted from animal to human, but not human to human.
Very. From 1993 through 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded just 864 cases of hantavirus, most of which were found in New Mexico, followed by Colorado and Arizona. Erin Phipps, a New Mexico state public health veterinarian who spoke Friday, said they have identified between one and seven Hantavirus infections in people annually through the end of 2024, and 42% of the state’s cases have been fatal.
Hantavirus can be transmitted to people through “rodent urine, droppings or saliva,” Phipps said. Hantavirus is most commonly transmitted at a patient’s residence or workplace, though Phipps said the risk of exposure in the Hackmans’ primary residence was low. They identified signs of rodent entry in some structures on the property, but could not say definitively how Arakawa contracted the virus.
Jarrell said Friday Hackman had “very extensive heart disease” and was predisposed to abnormal heart rhythms. She said the official cause of death was hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which can stem from unmanaged high blood pressure and the buildup of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on the artery walls that can lead to heart problems like heart attacks and failure, according to Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic.
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