New Details Emerge in Gene Hackman Case

With any tragedy, questions are expected. With the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy, there’s been the added confusion of not only how they died but when. Since the couple was already found in a partially mummified state, the logical answer is that they had been dead for a while. But after the Chief Medical Investigator Dr. Heather Jarrell said at a press conference that it was “reasonable to conclude” that Arakawa died February 11, her doctor has come forward to say that he spoke with her on February 12.

The Doctor Says She Called to Schedule an Appointment

On March 16, Dr. Josiah Child told Daily Mail that Betsy had an appointment to see him on February 10th at his clinic, Cloudberry Heath, but she had to cancel because Gene Hackman was sick. “She’d called me a couple of weeks before her death to ask about getting an echocardiogram [heart scan] for her husband,” Child said. “She was not a patient of mine, but one of my patients recommended Cloudberry to her.”

Two days after canceling, Betsy called Cloudberry Health again, and one of the doctors convinced her to come in that afternoon. But according to Child, she wasn’t coming in for anything respiratory.

“We made her an appointment, but she never showed up. She did not show any symptoms of respiratory distress. The appointment wasn’t for anything related to the hantavirus. We tried calling her a couple of times with no reply.”

Many are Baffled at the Diagnosis of Hantavirus

According to Dr. Jarrell, hantavirus infection progresses to shortness of breath, cardiac or heart failure, and lung failure after 1 to 8 weeks of exposure to rat or mouse feces. An LA-based doctor expressed puzzlement at hantavirus being Betsy’s cause of death because she was seen running errands to a chemist, pet food store, and grocery store on February 11th.

“Respiratory failure is not sudden – it is something that worsens over several days,” the doctor told the Daily Mail. “Most people get admitted to the ER [emergency room] because they are having trouble breathing. It’s exceedingly rare for a seemingly healthy 65-year-old to drop dead of it. In fact, no one’s heard of such a thing.”

Even Child, who worked as an emergency care specialist prior to opening Cloudberry Heath, was baffled. “I am not a hantavirus expert, but most patients who have that diagnosis die in hospital,” Child said. “It is surprising that Mrs Hackman spoke to my office on the phone on February 10 and again on February 12 and didn’t appear in respiratory distress.”