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Earlier today, we reported on the tragic news that Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their New Mexico home.
Hackman was 95, and Arakawa was 63.
One of the couple’s dogs was also found dead, a detail that’s led many to conclude that Hackman and Arakawa were victims of carbon monoxide poisoning.
But other details about the girsly scene have served to remind us that the deaths of this screen legend and his wife are very much still unexplained — and still mysterious.
According to a new report from TMZ, the officers who responded to a welfare check call also found two living dogs inside the home.
Police requested a warrant to search the home, and the Santa Fe detective who wrote the request described Hackman and Arakawa’s deaths as “suspicious.”
“The death of the two deceased individuals to be suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation,” reads the request obtained by TMZ.
The detective adds that “the reporting party found the front door of the residence unsecured and opened, deputies observed a healthy dog running loose on the property, another healthy dog near the deceased female, a deceased dog laying 10-15 feet from the deceased female in a closet of the bathroom.”
Additional suspicious details include “the heater being moved, the pill bottle being opened and pills scattered next to the female, the male decedent being located in a separate room of the residence, and no obvious signs of a gas leak.”
On social media, many users seeking to make sense of this tragedy noted that it’s been unusually cold in New Mexico. They posited that the weather might have caused the couple to turn up their heat, which may have resulted in a gas leak.
But that doesn’t appear to have been the case.
“As of now, there are no signs or evidence indicating there were any problems associated to the pipes in and around the residence,” reads a statement to TMZ by the New Mexico Gas Company.
The Daily Mail reports that Hackman and Arakawa were found in an advanced state of decomposition and had not been seen by neighbors in at least two weeks.
The two bodies were found in different rooms, and investigators noted that Hackman seemed to have “suddenly fallen” due to the fact that his sunglasses were on the floor near his head.
We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.