{"id":23469,"date":"2025-03-06T12:55:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T12:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=23469"},"modified":"2025-03-06T12:55:21","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T12:55:21","slug":"police-admit-to-big-crime-scene-mistake-after-gene-hackman-died-alongside-wife-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=23469","title":{"rendered":"Police admit to big crime scene mistake after Gene Hackman died alongside wife at home"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Police tasked with investigating the mysterious deaths of legendary Hollywood actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa have admitted a major crime scene mistake was made.<\/p>\n

On 27 February,\u00a0The Royal Tenenbaums<\/em>\u00a0star Hackman, 95, and his classically trained pianist wife Arakawa, 63, were\u00a0found deceased at their home<\/a>\u00a0in Santa Fe,\u00a0New Mexico<\/a>, by authorities.<\/p>\n

The couple’s deaths – as well as the death of one of their\u00a0dogs<\/a>\u00a0– was not initially believed to be suspicious; however, authorities are still stumped over the cause of their deaths, with the pair\u00a0believed to have been deceased for some time<\/a>\u00a0before being discovered.<\/p>\n

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Authorities in New Mexico are currently investigating the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa (Donaldson Collection\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

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Authorities have since\u00a0deemed the case<\/a>\u00a0‘suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation’.<\/p>\n

In a new update on the investigation, it’s been revealed that officers made a mix-up during identification of the couple’s dogs. According to a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0shared by USA Today, police initially stated the deceased dog was a\u00a0German Shepherd<\/a>, leading many close to the couple to believe it was their dog Bear.<\/p>\n

However, an animal chiropractor who worked with the couple has revealed the pup is alive. The outlet also revealed that it was Zinna, a 12-year-old reddish Australian Kelpie mixed breed, who was found dead at the property.<\/p>\n

Bear and Nikita, the couple’s third dog, have since been taken to a local animal shelter. The owner of Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society has since confirmed that they are both in their care.<\/p>\n

Responding to the reports of a mix-up in the initial police report, Santa Fe County Sheriff\u2019s Office spokeswoman Denise Womack-Avila told the outlet that she wasn’t aware of the mistaken identity, but suggested investigators may have accidentally misidentified the breed.<\/p>\n

“Our deputies do not deal with canines on a daily basis and I cannot currently speak to the condition or state of the dog\u2019s body upon discovery,” she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

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The couple were dedicated dog lovers (Facebook)<\/cite><\/div>\n

This suggestion matches up to the initial a search warrant from officers, which stated authorities ‘continued to search the residence where they then observed\/found a deceased brown in colour German-Shepard (sic) canine’.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, authorities are continuing to investigate the cause of Hackman and Arakawa’s deaths.<\/p>\n

According to Sheriff Fe sheriff Adan Mendoza, the couple were discovered by maintenance workers at the property and appeared to have been dead for some time, with their bodies found\u00a0partially mummified<\/a>\u00a0in separate rooms.<\/p>\n

Arakawa’s body was discovered in the bathroom\u00a0alongside various pills<\/a>, which police have since deemed ‘suspicious enough’ to warrant a thorough investigation, while Hackman was found in the home’s mudroom alongside his sunglasses and walking cane.<\/p>\n

LADbible has contacted the Santa Fe Sheriff Department’s spokesperson for further comment.<\/p>\n

Featured Image Credit: (Kevin Winter\/Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

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    Police tasked with investigating the mysterious deaths of legendary Hollywood actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa have admitted a major crime scene mistake was made. On … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23471,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23469\/revisions\/23471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}