Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman was in an advanced state of Alzheimer's and died of heart disease and other factors probably after his wife, Betsy Arakawa, died of a rare virus distributed by mouse, according to the results of the autopsy published on Friday in New Mexico.
Hackman, 95, Arakawa, 64, and one of their dogs was found dead on February 26 in separate rooms from the house of the couple Santa Fe.
Hackman's heart disease and Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome that caused Arakawa's death were announced at a press conference at the Santa F Sheriff.
Hackman's wife died a week before him, the results showed. A journalist asked Sheriff Adan Mendoza if the advanced Alzheimer's disease of Hackman had prevented him from perceiving his death.
“I guess this is the case,” Mendoza told journalists.
“He was in an advanced state of Alzheimer's, and it is quite possible that he did not know that she had died,” journalist Heather Jarrell, chief investigator at the office of the New Mexico of the medical investigator, to journalist.
Arakawa is said to have died around February 11, authorities announced on Friday, citing the date of his last email.
Jarrell determined that Hackman died on February 18, based on his cardiac stimulator activity.
Hantavirus is a rare disease in the United States, most of the cases concentrated in the Western States of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. In the north of the New Mexico, the virus is mainly spread through excrement and deer mouse urine.
The virus is often transmitted in the air when people sweep out hangars or clean cupboards where mice live. It begins with pseudo-grapple symptoms and can cause heart and pulmonary insufficiency, with approximately 38% to 50% of cases causing death.
New menxic has known between one and seven cases per year in recent years, according to health data.
State health inspectors found no particular sign of rodents inside Hackman's home, but detected rodent activity in structures outside the house, state veterinarian, journalists said.
Hackman and Arakawa, a pianist, had called Santa Fe Home since the 1980s and were active in the city's artistic community and the culinary scene. In recent years, the couple has been seen less often in town when Hackman's health has deteriorated. They lived a very private life before their death, said Mendoza.
A guardian of their closed community discovered the dead couple. Sheriff deputies found Hackman in the kitchen. Arakawa and a dog were found in a bathroom.
Hackman and Arakawa seemed to have suddenly fallen to the ground, and none showed signs of blunt trauma.
Arakawa had picked up one of his dogs in a cash register on February 9 of a Santa Fe veterinarian, which may explain why the animal was found dead in the cash register at the couple on February 26, said Mendoza. Phipps said the dog may have died of famine.
Hackman, a former sailor known for his hoarse voice, appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and on stage during a long career that started in the early 1960s.
He obtained his first Oscar appointment for his role of escape as a brother of bank thief Clyde Barrow in “Bonnie and Clyde” of 1967. He won an Oscar for best actor in 1972 for his representation of the detective Popeye Doyle in “The French Connection” and in 1993 won an Oscar for the best support actor for “Unforgiven”.
