The mystery surrounding the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, has deepened as the pianist’s doctor cast doubt on the date that officials estimate she died.
Dr. Josiah Child, who runs the Cloudberry Health private practice in New Mexico, claimed Sunday that he received a phone call from Arakawa on Feb. 12 — one day after she was said to have died.
“Mrs. Hackman didn’t die on Feb. 11 because she called my clinic on Feb. 12,” he told the Daily Mail.
The doctor shared that Arakawa had called his clinic a “couple of weeks before her death” to ask about getting a heart scan for her husband.
At the time, she was not a patient of Child’s, but she ended up scheduling an appointment for herself for Feb. 12.
“It was for something unrelated to anything respiratory,” he told the outlet, referencing a medical examiner determining that Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare rat-borne respiratory disease.
Child said Arakawa ultimately canceled her appointment on Feb. 10 because her “husband was not well.”
However, she called his office back “on the morning of Feb. 12 and spoke to one of [his] doctors, who told her to come in that afternoon.”
“We made her an appointment, but she never showed up,” Child claimed. “She did not show any symptoms of respiratory distress. The appointment wasn’t for anything related to hantavirus. We tried calling her a couple of times with no reply.”
The bombshell contradicts with the medical examiner’s previous estimation that Arakawa died on Feb. 11.
That afternoon, she was seen running errands at a local grocery store, a pharmacy and a pet shop near the couple’s Santa Fe home.
Hackman and Arakawa were not found dead, however, until Feb. 26. They were 95 and 65, respectively.
Officials believe the musician died about a week before the “French Connection” actor in their house.
Hackman, who had heart problems and advanced Alzheimer’s disease, died from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in a separate room.
He is believed to have died on Feb. 18, which was the last day his pacemaker was active.
