A contractor who discovered the decomposing bodies of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, last month said he sensed trouble brewing.
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Jesse Kesler, a 16-year employee of the couple, told Fox News he grew alarmed after not hearing from Arakawa for two weeks. Typically, they spoke every three days.
Kesler acted quickly. He attempted to arrange a wellness check for Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65, at their Santa Fe home.
"We were getting pretty worried," he said. "We knew something was wrong." He reached out to law enforcement for guidance. However, the process hit snags.
Authorities required family authorization, but Kesler struggled to contact relatives. Frustrated by delays, he teamed up with a security guard to enter the home on February 26. There, they found the couple dead.
Hackman's daughter, Leslie, contradicted Kesler's account. She told Fox News no one contacted her about a wellness check. "No one had reached out," she said. The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office backed her claim. They reported no prior outreach before the bodies were discovered.
Contractor Intuition Proves Right
Medical examiners later revealed the causes of death. Arakawa succumbed to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare rodent-borne illness. Hackman died from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, worsened by Alzheimer's. Tragically, one of their three dogs also perished. A state necropsy showed it died of starvation and dehydration while crated, recovering from surgery.
New doubts emerged this week about the timeline. Authorities initially pegged Arakawa's death around February 11. But Dr. Josiah Child, a Santa Fe physician, told investigators Arakawa called his clinic, Cloudberry Health, on February 12. This claim challenges the official narrative and has prompted officials to reassess the sequence of events.
Kesler's discovery ended weeks of uncertainty. Yet Leslie's statements and the sheriff's response raise questions about communication breakdowns.
Meanwhile, Dr. Child's assertion adds fresh complexity to an already grim case. Investigators now face pressure to clarify when and how the couple's decline began. The deaths of the two-time Oscar winner and his wife continue to stun their community.
