Authorities have released body camera footage from outside the home of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa, where they were found dead in late February.
In the newly released footage, officers are seen arriving at the scene for the first time and speaking with two maintenance workers who alerted authorities after discovering a body lying face down through a window.
Deputies inquired about the possibility of a gas leak or carbon monoxide poisoning at the Santa Fe, New Mexico, residence, but the workers responded that they couldn’t see how that could have been the case given that there were no indications of forced entry or other suspicious circumstances. “Something is not right. Something is not right,” one of the workers said to officers in the footage.
“My concern is a carbon monoxide issue,” an officer said after looking through the window of the home.Authorities soon determined there were no leaks that could have been fatal, further fuelling a mystery that captured the public’s attention.
“Then we kept walking, and I seen something laying there. All of a sudden to see that, both of them, bro, it’s — sorry,” one of the maintenance workers said, fighting back tears.
The bodycam video also shares the moment that officers called Hackman’s daughter Elizabeth to deliver the heartbreaking news of her father’s death.
“I’m real sorry for your loss,” the officer told Elizabeth.
Elizabeth requested for the couple’s deceased dog to be cremated and buried with Arakawa.
“If the dog was wearing a collar, could you save that for me?” Elizabeth asked.In another video, obtained by Fox News Digital, Arakawa’s hairstylist shared that she had concerns during their last visit in December 2024.
“She mentioned to me that there was a man that had parked outside of their gate and followed them,” her hairstylist, a man named Christopher, told police.
“On two separate occasions. One occasion is when they went to White Rock. They went and had lunch there and the guy followed them from parked [outside their gated community], followed them all the way to White Rock.“ She stated, “Christopher, I’m surprised that security didn’t know how he got there; when we left, I noticed that this car had followed us from the residence to White Rock.” Arakawa reportedly told her hairstylist that the man had approached them with a folder of photos of Hackman and asked for autographs.“ And I said, we were sitting here and I said, ‘That’s so weird because Santa Fe’s not a place of paparazzi and stuff.’ She said she approached him and said, ‘I told him he needed to have more respect,’” Christopher said.
On another occasion, the same man reportedly followed the couple to a different location. Christopher said Arakawa told him the man offered the couple a bottle of wine and they declined.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh, Betsy, that’s crazy. You should not have approached this person. This makes me nervous,’” Christopher said. “He knew what [they] drove. That’s the scary part.” About a week after his wife died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare, rodent-borne disease, medical examiners found that Hackman died of heart disease with Alzheimer’s complications. The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office released only some of the footage from the investigation.
Last week, a New Mexico court granted a temporary restraining order against the release of certain records related to the investigation into the deaths of Hackman and Arakawa.
The order was in response to a request by Julia Peters, a representative for the couple’s estate. She urged in a motion filed earlier this month that the court seal records in the case to protect the family’s right to privacy in grief under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Gene Hackman death: Police release bodycam footage from outside home
