A lot of mystery has surrounded the death of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa in February. Now, a new report suggests that a man was stalking the husband and wife months before their deaths. Newly-released body cam footage shows the hairstylist for Arakawa worried about two stalking incidents in December.
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Man Stalked Hackman And Arakawa Prior To Deaths, According To Wife
On February 26, the couple's contractor and a bodyguard found the 95-year-old actor and 65-year-old Arakawa dead. The duo and their dog were unresponsive in their New Mexico home. While we now know more details on their causes of death, none of them were due to murder.
Still, the hairstylist, Christopher, had every right to be concerned when speaking to the cops about the strange incidents. In footage that Fox News obtained, Christopher said Arakawa told him "that there was a man that had parked outside of their gate and followed them."
This not only happened once before their deaths, but twice. "One occasion is when they went to White Rock," Christopher continued. "They went and had lunch there and the guy followed them from parked [outside of their gated community], followed them all the way to White Rock.
"She said, 'Christopher, I'm surprised that security didn't [know] how he got there... because when we left, I noticed that this car had followed us from the residence to White Rock.'"
The hairstylist said Arakawa mentioned how the man "pulled out a folder of photos of her husband and wanted him to sign them." He immediately thought it was strange since Santa Fe's not typically known for having paparazzi. "She approached him and said, 'I told him he needed to have more respect.'"
The Second Stalking Incident
During the second stalking incident, the same stranger followed the couple to a separate location. This time, he offered them a bottle of wine, but they declined the offer.
Her hairstylist instantly warned her about approaching strangers. "I said, 'Oh my gosh, Betsy, that's crazy. You should not have approached this person. This makes me nervous,'" said Christopher. "He knew what [they] drove. That's the scary part."
While Arakawa first passed away from Hantavirus around February 11, Hackman died a week later. His cause of death was heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. One of their dogs also passed away in the home with no one to take care of them. They were later found on February 26, their bodies already decaying.
There's currently a temporary restraining order in a New Mexico court to stop them from releasing footage of their home. Hackman's estate filed this in an effort to protect the family's constitutional right to privacy in grief, according to the Daily Mail.
