SANTA FE, N.M. — There are some discrepancies between phone records and the timeline officials previously gave in the death of Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa.
Arakawa made calls to a medical center the morning after officials initially believed she died from hantavirus after they obtained phone logs from the couple.
A Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said that the phone records showed three calls were made on the morning of Feb. 12. She missed a call from the same medical center later in the day on Feb. 12.
The subject of the calls and whether Arakawa was the one who made them were not released by the sheriff’s office.
A doctor at Cloudberry, a concierge medical service, said that Arakawa contacted the office on Feb. 12.
“That would indicate to me that she was seeking medical advice or medical help and may have not been feeling well or had been showing signs or feeling symptoms of hantavirus,” Sheriff Adan Mendoza told “Good Morning America.”
A Cloudberry representative said that she had called to find out about an “esoteric treatment” the morning of Feb. 12 and that they did not notice any breathing issues or signs of distress. They tried returning her call twice, but she did not answer.
Dr. Josiah Child said Arakawa had made an appointment for Feb. 12 about respiratory issues, but canceled because she was feeling unwell he told the Daily Mail. She at first called the clinic because for a heart scan for Hackman.
Officials said her last known activity was on Feb. 11.
The sheriff’s office had said the investigation is ongoing and had been waiting for cell phone records, which had not yet been obtained when Chief Medical Examiner Heather Jarrell gave an estimated timeline on March 7.
Officials believe Arakawa, 65, died days before her husband. The 95-year-old Hackman’s pacemaker registered activity on Feb. 17 and they think he died the next day. His main cause of death was due to heart disease. They also believe that he didn’t know that Arakawa died because he had advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
Their bodies were found on Feb. 26 at their home, along with the remains of one of their dogs who was found dead in a dog crate.
A necropsy found that the dog, identified as Zinna, likely died from dehydration and starvation, citing, “severe postmortem decomposition with partial mummification.”
There were no indications of infection, trauma or poisoning in the dog.
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