The very private Gene Hackman will be allowed to retain some of his privacy posthumously, at least for a few more weeks.
Almost three weeks after the two-time Oscar winner and spouse Betsy Arakawa were discovered dead at their Santa Fe home, a New Mexico judge today granted their estate’s request to seal medical records As well, Judge Matthew Wilson has sealed all police photos and video footage of the couple’s bodies and one of their dogs when they were found on February 26.
Suffering from Alzheimer’s and heart disease, 95-year-old Hackman is assumed to have died on or about February 18, according to New Mexico authorities. That was almost a week after 63-year-old Arakawa is said to have died as a result in part of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, a disease primarily spread mainly by rodents’ feces as state medical officials and Santa Fe County Sheriff Adam Mendoza revealed on March 7. revealed on March 7.
Unlike what occurred in the immediate aftermath of the January 2020 helicopter crash death of basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his second daughter Gianna with photographs of the wreckage and the bodies passed around for days by cops and others, today Judge Wilson ordered the potentially gruesome details of what was discovered in the Hackmans’ secluded home to be kept out of the public eye. Monday’s order follows a filing last week from the Hackman estate’s Julia Peters to respect the couple’s “exemplary private life” and Constitutional rights.
Today, Judge Wilson wrote the Office of the Medical Investigator and the Sante Fe Sheriff’s office “including each entities’ agents, assigns, and employees are hereby temporarily restrained from disclosing through IPRA or other means, any, and all photographs or videos containing images of the following:
- The body of Gene Hackman
- The body of Betsy Arakawa-Hackman
- The interior of
the[MJW] Mr. and Mrs. Hackman’s residence - Any Label footage that includes Mr. or Mrs. Hackman’s bodies
- Any Label footage that includes images of any deceased animals at the Hackman residence”
Additionally, even with that quite vivid press conference of earlier this month, the Medical Investigator is “temporarily restrained from disclosing through IPRA or any other means means [MJW] the Autopsy Reports and/or Death Investigation Reports for Mr. and Mrs. Hackman.”
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office, which had basically asserted this matter was nearly wrapped up two weeks ago, did not respond to request for comment from Deadline on today’s order.
A hearing is set in Judge Wilson’s courtroom on March 31 for the police and the University of New Mexico, which runs the Office of the Medical Investigator, to argue why the now sealed images and information should not be permanently kept under wraps.
The case does reflect some conflicting legal and ethical headwinds for the state, the estate and the court. Traditionally, the availability of such material as images of dead bodies and medical info is not released into the public sphere in the Land of Enchantment. However, because Arakawa is believed to have passed away suddenly due to the Hantavirus raspatory disease that she could have picked up from rat or mice droppings, there is a public health and safety element to her medical records.
Usually, with other potentially at risk, such informantion is made public under New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act – but not here, at least not now.
On March 7, New Mexico Chief Medical Examiner was very open about what had gone down in the Hackmans’ home in late February.
“The cause of death for Mr. Gene Hackman, aged 95 years, is hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributory factor,” Dr. Heather Jarrell explained outside the County administrative building, noting the long ailing French Connection star had likely starved to death without the presence of his sole caregiver Arakawa alive to help him. “Autopsy examination and a full body post mortem CT examination demonstrated no acute findings of internal or external trauma, and showed severe heart disease, including multiple surgical procedures involving the heart, evidence of prior heart attacks and severe changes of the kidneys due to chronic high blood pressure.”
Having retired from Hollywood after 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport, Royal Tenenbaums patriarch Hackman won Oscars for The French Connection (1971) and Clint Eastwood‘s Unforgiven (1992). In a career spanning four decades, Hackman was Oscar-nominated for his performances in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and Mississippi Burning (1988).
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