Body camera footage shows moments after deputies discover Gene Hackman's body in Santa Fe home
Mar 25, 2025
SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – More body camera footage is giving glimpses of the scene outside the Santa Fe home where the bodies of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found.
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Only video from outside of the home is being released at this time as a judge granted a temporary block of footage showing inside the home or the couple's bodies at the request of the family. As investigators tried to figure out what happened, the footage released showed one of the top priorities of the deputies on scene was privacy.
"Because of who they are…I just want to keep this limited as much as possible, because once this gets out, you know, how this is going to turn," said one deputy.
It's something that was also reiterated to the couple's next of kin. "A lot of the information that we do at the sheriff's office is unfortunately public information, and it doesn't take them very long to figure out where this was at, the address," said one deputy to Hackman's daughter on the phone. "Once we start getting the media attention and all that stuff, people start wondering what's going on. I don't want anybody here that's not supposed to be here."
While one of the couple's dogs was found dead near Arakawa's body, body camera video also shows the couple's other dogs roaming the property. One dog trainer who knew the couple was trying to corral the other dogs and was shocked to learn the news.
"Anything he needed, she took care of him. But she was healthy, man, acupuncturist, healthy foods, everything," said the dog trainer. One groundskeeper told deputies he was in the process of doing a welfare check after not hearing from Arakawa.
"I knew something was wrong because she don't totally cut off cut off communications for that long," he said.
With no evidence of foul play, deputies bring up the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. The medical investigation would later reveal that Arakawa died first of hantavirus. Authorities said Hackman died more than a week later of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer's. It was determined that one of their dogs died of starvation and dehydration.
While Hackman's estate has asked the courts to temporarily block any footage showing the bodies of Hackman and Arakawa, there is an upcoming hearing to decide if that footage should be permanently blocked from being released to the public. ...read more read less