March 13, 2025 • 40 mins
Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the latest information regarding the death of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa. Their deaths have been called "suspicious" by some in the press, but Joe Scott explains what actually happened and why their deaths, while shocking and sad, are not suspicious.
Transcribe Highlights
00:00.90 Introduction - The Death of Gene Hackman
03:40.86 Gene Hackman found in "Mud Room" and wife found in Bathroom with pills spilled around her
08:59.26 Dog found dead in bathroom had some type of treatment at the vet
14:09.85 Actors with dementia trying to perform
19:03.30 Gene Hackman was totally dependent on his wife
24:31.11 What does "mummify" mean
28:59.43 Gene Hackman's wife died from Hantavirus
33:23.47 Hantavirus is spread by rodents
39:08.17 Gene Hackman didn't drink any water or eat any food days leading up to his death
41:44.62 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body Times with Joseph Scott more.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I guess probably after the past two weeks, I've come
to view the word suspicious in a whole new light.
And granted I've been at this quite some time, and
I'm a grown man. I should have known better. But
(00:26):
with the death of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arkawa,
that term was thrown around, initially by the police in
New Mexico, and then it took off like wildfire with
(00:49):
the media. I guess we could spend an entire episode
talking about how the media will hook into something and
won't let it go, and all you're left with is
a memory of things that seemingly are unanswered because you
(01:09):
never could quite get past that one word suspicious are questionable.
But what we are left with is the passing of
one of the greatest actors, certainly in my lifetime, and
(01:33):
by all appearances, a very fine man as well. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Well, Dave, we
finally have some answers relative to the death of Gene Hackman,
(01:58):
and more specifically his cause of death. His manner, for
my money, has never been in question. I have not
felt that necessarily that there was anything particularly suspicious about
(02:19):
Gene Hackman's death. But unfortunately we went down that road,
didn't we, relative to you know, I.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Think really it was because of not that he died
at the age of ninety five inside his home, but
it was the fact that his wife, who was thirty
one years younger than him, also was dead inside the
home where he was found inside what they have referred
(02:46):
to as the mudroom. I have never referred to my
utility room as a mudroom, but now I will. I actually, Joe,
when I first saw that and the mudroom, I thought
it was like like a room that you know, how
to have mud walls and some Oriental homes. Okay, I
thought that's what it was, and I thought his wife whatever.
I mainly that's what I thought. I didn't know it
(03:09):
was actually a room where you kicked the mud off
your shoes room. So anyway, but she was found in
the bathroom, so Jean's found in there and he's It
appeared based on what we were told, that maybe he
was getting dressed to go outside when he had some
type of cardiac event that caused him to die in
the mudroom. Meanwhile, his wife of many years is dead
(03:33):
in the bathroom with pills spilled around her, and a
dog in a I'm guessing a carrying case cage thing
also dead. And I think that was why there was
some suspicion air quotes on the deaths, because they both
died at the same time thirty one year age difference.
(03:54):
I think that's why there were questions about what really happened.
I think you were very board from the very beginning
that it wasn't suspicious. There's probably a reasonable explanation, and
I'm wondering, now, do we have that reasonable explanation.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, yeah, we do. I was never inclined to believe that,
you know, someone entered this private gated community in Santa Fe,
New Mexico, and specifically went to Gene Hackman's home and
(04:34):
decided to take the lives of both of these people.
I thought that that was bizarre in and of itself.
Some people had actually, you know, put forth that they
thought that that might be what happened, and then we
had the carbon monoxide. Now was that plausible? Yes, it
(04:55):
is plausible, and that does happen. It happened in cases
I've worked. It's happened over the years for a variety
of friends of mine from all across the nation where
you're going to if you're a medical legal death investigator
for any period of time, you're going to catch case
(05:16):
involving multiple deaths from carbon monoxide. It's going to happen.
You can't avoid that because it's everywhere, and you get
a high concentration and it will endure life very very quickly.
But when that cleared up and they knew that there
(05:38):
was nothing to it, and they're not prattling on about
marks on the body or anything like that, I knew
that it had to be something natural. And so my
mind began to drift towards this idea of and here,
let me give you some inside baseball information. I can
(05:59):
say it now, but I'd had one newsperson, and eventually
it became two that said to me before it was
ever made public, that he had dementia. And when I
heard that, and it's something that is not to be unexpected.
(06:20):
He's ninety five years old. Come on, give me break,
he's ninety five. And as it turns out, you know,
he's got Alzheimer's. And so when I heard that, I
knew that what we were faced with here was probably
going to be a death or death that you know,
(06:42):
kind of cycled around around some kind of natural manifestation.
With Betsy, it that that was the big question. It
wasn't so much mister Hackman, okay, but with his wife
that was a big question because as you had stated,
(07:03):
what was that age difference is like.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Thirty, she was sixty four, he was ninety five.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, thirty one years younger. What unless she's got some
kind of really bad heart history, or maybe she's got
some kind of cerebral blockage or something where she's going
to have a stroke. You know, I couldn't put my
finger on it. It was so it was so bizarre,
(07:30):
you know, how she could just fall over dead. But
one clue I think that we had was the fact
that she was in the bathroom, and in the bathroom
with us pills scattered all about, And it was the
fact that they were talking about how many pills were
(07:53):
scattered about on the counter and everything, and someone had
asked me, is this an overdose? And I'm thinking, well,
you know, if you overdose on medication, it stands to
reason there would be more in than out, if you
know what I mean, Uh, there wouldn't be pills scattered
all about. I mean to the point where they're talking
about that they were laying everywhere. You would think that
(08:16):
if that was the intention here, you know that you
wouldn't see all of these pills. They would have been ingested.
So it sounds like it was some some kind of
sudden event she had. From my understanding, she had just
returned with the dog from the vet. If I'm not mistaken,
(08:37):
this poor animal had undergone some type of treatment at
the veterinarian's office, and that's the reason the dog was
caged up, you know, to you know how they want
you to keep the animalize and keep them, yeah, and
keep them contained. And when she was seen, when she
(08:58):
was seen out and about she is now she's been seeing.
She's traveling around town all masked up. We know that
she had gone to CVS. We know that she had
gone to the farmer's market. Okay, we know that she
had actually on the pet store. So you've got her
(09:19):
making all of these locations. And I think that on
the last day that she was known to have been alive,
which was the eleventh, I believe that's when the last
activity on her card, her swipe card to get access
to the gate getting back. That's the last time that
they had recorded. I think it was like five just
(09:41):
after five pm that day, and then she rolled back
up to the house at that point.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Interesting how we can track people by our electronics now,
you know, whether it's a pass card or our phone
or yeah, in this case even a pacemaker is involved.
But let me I want to back up to something
you mentioned dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Is I kind of
thought that one led to the other. Is that what
(10:08):
is the difference or is there what are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, dementia is kind of a broad ranging term, and
there could be. But he, mister Hackman had been diagnosed
with with with Alzheimer's. And here's saying they didn't just
diagnosed him. It wasn't just his diagnosis wasn't merely Alzheimer's disease.
(10:34):
His diagnosis was advanced Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay, Okay, So that means years in development.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Oh yeah, yeah. And it's going to be variable dependent
upon what type of treatment and individuals a areergoing. And
I think some of your genetic predispositions relative to your
survive survivability, I think because it's not going to end
well either way. And with with him it had been
(11:06):
because this is a guy and I was doing some
some reading. Do you know that up until I know
that back in his sixties, he was still boxing. He
would he would Yeah, that may have just been shadow boxing.
But he had a workout partner, trainer. He could box.
(11:26):
He had boxed in the Marine Corps, you know, all
all those years ago, back in the fifties, and he
still had muscle memory for that. You know. His trainer
is even quoted as saying, you know, he he knew
the positions of the feet, he knew how to strike,
and he he could move really well. He played golf,
(11:47):
he did pilates, he did yoga, you know. So this
is not a guy and he watched what he ate.
You know, this is not a guy that that didn't
take care of himself. You know. But you know, seeing
Crew was see encruachment of time.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
No, Dave Well, when he retired. You know a lot
of actors they don't actually announce their retirement, you know,
although recently we have had a few do it. But
when Gene Hackman stopped performing, I remember it happening because
I enjoy his work. I enjoyed some of his last
work in film and Heartbreakers comes to mind, where he
(12:24):
plays the head of a tobacco company. He's always smoking.
Smoking's a bit. It's just it's just a funny guy.
But I loved his I just really enjoyed his performances.
And when he announced he was going to stop acting
and he was going to take time writing, you know,
something that he enjoyed doing and wanted to do. You know,
it's just you hit that age. I mean with actors
(12:45):
usually they just kind of fade, you know, because they're
parts dry up. But we've had Gene Hackman walking away.
I think Jack Nicholson did the same thing. Once Gene
Hackman said I'm done, you know, Nicholson followed not far behind.
That's why at the fiftieth anniversary for SNL, when Jack
Nicholson showed up, it was such a big deal. You
(13:08):
he introduced Adam Sandler's segment. And it wasn't a big, long,
drawn out thing. He was sitting in his position in
the seat, you know, but he did introduce Adam Sandler
and Jack said it was because he was having trouble
remembering lines and things like that. That's why he quit
performing several years ago, but we recently had the Bruce
(13:29):
Willis where he has something in the family of the
dementia family that is causing him to lose his ability
to communicate, to speak. And he was filming a movie
in Alabama, just outside of Birmingham in Bessemer, and a
couple of friends of mine were actually working on the
set and they were talking about how he was having
(13:50):
to be fed his lines.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yes, yeah, I heard that. I'd heard that from a
separate source of mind that was probably three years ago
from a uh guy's a producer I'm really good friends with,
and he had mentioned how, you know, they would have
to use Q cards or they would have one of
(14:11):
those tiny little things in their ear, you know, where
they could be fed that way.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
And I thought that was they at the time, it
was kind of positioned as he's so lazy, he doesn't
even bother to learn his lines, and then it didn't
It was not long after that last time that they
came out and said, you know, he is suffering from this.
So in the last few years of catching these types
of things, it kind of made me wonder what was
going on with with Gene Hackman. And as you mentioned,
(14:38):
dementia and then advanced Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Like I said, I think a lot of us don't
know the difference.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Between Here's Here's one of the really interesting things about
this condition is that did you know that the as
as this is a degenerat of disease, and so as
it progresses, the actual cells of the brain begin to diminish,
(15:09):
they actually grow smaller and smaller, and so at autopsy,
the brain will actually way less, uh say, for instance,
as opposed to somebody of the same age group that
is not suffering from this condition, the brain will actually
(15:32):
be smaller. And you know, isn't that isn't that interesting
because many times you you this kind of it's almost
like a childlike regression. You know that you see where
individuals that have this malady, they they become It's it
(15:56):
starts off where they're having uh they can't put thoughts
together very well, they can't think things through like they
once could, and they'll present with being confused, you know,
and then over a period of time they do become
more childlike until they're almost infantile. And that's that's the
(16:16):
really horrible thing about this case. The horror of the
fact that your bride who you've been married to all
these years passes on and that you might not have
(16:38):
any awareness that she's left. I think most of us
can look back over our lives and we have these
(17:03):
moments in time where we're confused about things, or we
don't know what to do next, and and you know,
we can't find the words for something. I mean, you know,
just insert whatever phrase you want to into that. In
the case of Gene Hackman, there this is a constant
(17:28):
fight that he had been fighting for a long long time. Uh.
The thing that really sent a chill up and down
my spine with Betsy was the fact that she had
probably and I really thought this was more accurate than
(17:48):
initially uh what people were saying. I think that because
they kept using the term mummifoed, she had. She had
been down for in my opinion, for several days prior
to him passing on. And now we do know that
his pacemaker actually registered his last activity on the seventeenth.
(18:13):
And let's let's do the math on this. You know,
she her last activity that we know of, okay, with
the card key for the front gate to the neighborhood
was on the eleventh, So I don't know five six
days perhaps that, you know, assuming that when she walked
(18:36):
through the door that she passed on at that moment time.
And then you combine that with what I believe was
his total dependency upon her. He had to have her
day to survive, I mean, truly to survive. He needed
her guidance. Again, I think I mentioned this in our
(18:58):
initial episode about about their deaths. There was that image
where you could see him walking or crossing their street
and he was holding on to her, you know, dependent
upon her to you know, ambulate from one side of
the street to the other to get her about. And
(19:22):
that's got to be that's got to be so very
difficult for a man that was so virile. You know,
as a matter of fact, on screen he could be
very scary. You know, he looked like he could, you know,
snap your neck if he wanted to. I'm thinking about
Mississippi burning right now, you know, and those those If
(19:43):
you've never seen that movie, you just need to see
the one scene in there involving him and Michael Rooker.
It will really that's that that's a great summation of
how much power he had. It is incredible to see
him and he was like that in all his roles,
you always felt like there was something just beneath the
surface with him that was ready to explode at any
(20:06):
moment in time. And he had this kind of menacing
laugh that he would give, you know, like yeah, you know,
kind of like I could never do it justice. But
it was just you always felt like he was right there.
But then at the end, I believe that he probably
Dave unfortunately, probably wandered around that house for several days
(20:29):
with her lying in that bathroom and there, you know,
there was nothing, he could do nothing. You know, he's
a childlike state and completely incapable of taking care of himself.
I'm surprised he actually maybe lasted as long as he did.
(20:52):
You know, that might go to how tough he was.
But this is how I know this. Did you know
that at autopsy they checked his stomach there was no
food whatsoever. He had not eaten. He had not eaten,
And that gives you an indication that you know, he's
already in diminished state and then most physically and psychologically,
(21:20):
and then to go without food, that's just one more
nail in the coffin day. We know.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
I was reading the BBC did an article about it.
And says this actor Gene Hackman, was alone. The two
time Academy Award winner, didn't make any calls and missed meals.
Medical experts say it's possible the ninety five year old,
who was in declining health and suffering from advanced stages
of Alzheimer's disease, did not even realize his wife of
(21:48):
more than thirty years was dead in the home where
he was living. If he did, experts tell the BBC,
he likely went through various stages of confusion and grief
trying to wake her up before the disease caused him
to become distracted or too overwhelmed to act, a process
that likely repeated for days before he too died. That's
(22:09):
exactly what you described, Joe, of not being able to
understand or maintain focus enough to do anything about it
and even care for himself.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah. Wow, And you know, I don't know, I don't
want to wax to ethereal here, but you know, talking
about dying of a broken heart and there's absolutely nothing
you can do about it and being trapped, and that's
the way a lot of people describe the disease itself
as being trapped and the fact that he was in there.
(22:43):
I think that's that's the most and for me in
this case, that's the biggest takeaway because they lived a
life that was that kept them isolated to a great
degree where I think that as he had gotten up
in age, and matter of fact, one of the articles
(23:05):
that I'd read where they were interviewing this friend of
his that was a trainer, said that he was really
conscious of the way he looked now, you know, and
he's an actor obviously that you know, that says a lot.
You know that he didn't even like looking at old
(23:28):
films because he knew that he wasn't that person anymore.
And yeah, it does. It does make sense.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Wife, Joe. I mean, we know that he was in
a diminished capacity. We know that, you know, dementia and
advanced Alzheimer's, and he was ninety five. But his sixty
four year old wife, how did she die? What happened
to her? And why were they both in various stages
of mummification when they were found?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, I don't. Again, even though well even though the
record itself says or the the let me see, what's
the proper phraseology, the affidavit for the warrant actually alludes
to the fact that she was beginning to mumify, and
(24:19):
it said that he was similar. Well, I don't know
what similar means. That's not a medical legal report. That's
not the way we would have written it in my field,
because you take both individuals. Yeah, probably the investigator that
was trying to get the warrant, you know, And I
understand why they wrote it, and it's their purpose is
(24:40):
different than our purpose. But still I don't know how
valid that is as far as the assessment of his remains.
I suspect that they did not appear the same, absolutely
the same. I think that he had not He did
not show as much postwarum change as she did. Now
(25:03):
there would have been some, obviously, but not to the
degree that she was okay, And so I think we
have to take that with a grain of salt, you know,
relative to how they appeared when compared to one another.
And I don't know if that's necessarily a great comparison
or not. But in the case of Betsy Arkawa's cause
(25:28):
of death, I was struck by something so out of
left field, and many of us were. We never saw
it coming. And the origins of her death lie in
a tiny Rodent. Many moons ago, when I was going
(26:03):
through training in the Army, we were placed on the
US Mexico border. And again this is a long time ago.
This is before the days of what we're currently experiencing
with illegal immigration, and we had set up on a
(26:25):
site where we would surveil an area for a period
of time. And during that time I saw a manner
of wildlife. I even saw a sidewinder, which I'd never
seen before, which was really bizarre. But then my friends
noticed that were out there, and I finally saw one
these little mice that were out there. And the thing
(26:48):
about these little mice is that they had really long
long tails and that they could hop, and when I
say hop, I mean like really hop high in the air,
and they would eat food give it to them. One
of my friends actually enticed one of these mice in
the air with a chrumb of food from sea rats
(27:09):
to jump up and take this cracker from him. And
as it turns out, that little species of mice plays
into the death of Betsy Arkawa, and I guess by
default plays into the death of gene Hagwan Dave.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Because she was unable to care for him after she passed.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Wow. Yeah, it's like the old poema, you know, for
the want of a nail, a horse shoe was lost.
Of a horseshoe, a horse was lost. Yeah, it's kind
of It's amazing and it the way life intersects that way, Dave.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
It's called hauntavirus. Yeah, this is I remember a movie
that came out years ago with Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo,
Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, and it was called Outbreak,
and it was in the haunt of virus was mentioned
in New Mexico. What actually is that as a respiratory disease?
(28:11):
As it goes? What is it? How does it? I mean,
I have no clue other than a movie.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Listen, not many people do you. Obviously, you know those
in the know, in particularly in people that are epidemiologists
and people that study these bizarre kinds of diseases that
are out there, they would be up to snuff, as
(28:38):
they say, on these on this particular disease, it's not
something that is encountered. And let me frame it for you,
even with a tighter focus. New Mexico is considered to
be a hotbed for haunted virus. And I think that
they might experience maybe twenty nine to deaths per amum,
(29:01):
I think, which is pretty significant. But it's not even
like the flu okay, I mean, it's not that the
circumstances have to be just right in order for this
to end in some kind of terminal event. The disease
(29:23):
itself is actually spread through three ways, and the number
one carrier is carried by rodents. But according to their
public health people in New Mexico, which by the way,
I got to tell you this for folks that don't know.
Did you know that the public Health service in the
(29:44):
state of New Mexico actually administers the State Medical Examiner's Office,
which is State Medical Examiner, is not affiliated with law enforcement,
which I think is grand because it is a scientific pursuit.
They cannsider it to be public health, you know, and
(30:05):
it's catch all, and I think that it's great. So
they work on what's called a medical investigative model, and
I'm just I love it, absolutely love it that it's
separate from any kind of law enforcement agency because, you know,
the lawn share of death that they work that all
of us work in my field are not homicides. Lawn share,
(30:30):
you know, natural death and we, yeah, we work accidents,
and you know, we're the ones that work all the accidents.
We're the ones that work all of those suicides and
the homicides and everything else. But they view it through
a different lens than we do. So anyway, the State
Health Department, actually, you know, has has talked about how
(30:53):
it is. It's been identified as a hotbed for this
CDC has identified it as a hotbed for this virus.
But the way it spread is three ways, either saliva
of the rodent, urine of the rodent, or feces. And
they ran pretty extensive testing at the home. Inside of
(31:21):
this home. This is a big house, man, it's a
really big place. And they didn't see they didn't see
any evidence of mouse droppings inside of the house, according
to what they're saying. Okay, however, when they went out
to the outbuildings or outbuilding, they did see this. They
(31:45):
did see mouse droppings out there. And so let's just
say that Betsy and I don't know, I don't know
this for a fact. Okay, Well, let's just say and
she's a primary caretaker here, so I'm sure that she
busies herself through the day cleaning and those sort of things.
Maybe she went out to the outbuilding. Okay, this is
(32:09):
one possible scenario. Just one went out to the outbuilding
and she had a broom in her hand, and she
began sweeping up out there.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Well, as she's sweeping up, those remnant of feces that
are out there suddenly become aerosolized. So if you think about, like,
have you ever been standing by a window with the
sun beaming through and you could see the dust paricles? Okay,
that's essentially aerosolized. Okay, dust particles that you're seeing. Well,
(32:43):
she stirs this up with a broom for instance. All right,
and while she's out there, she's got to breathe. Right,
while she's out there, takes a deep breath. Well, guess
what she's just done. She is just taking the stuff up.
(33:04):
And the mice are carrying this virus within them and
it's in their excrement. Okay, and now she's introduced this
into her system. Well, we don't know how long she
had had this. This is really weird because you know,
they say that I was reading about this because I
got to tell you, Dave, I've never worked a case
(33:26):
of hauntavirus, never ever did you know that the incubation period.
You're going to be amazed by this. The incubation period
is one to eight weeks. That's how va this is
how big this number one to eight weeks, I know, man,
So you're thinking it takes that long for this thing
(33:47):
to incubate and then I guess begin to present.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
We do know that ever since COVID, or in the
midst of COVID, they did self isolate. During that period
of time, they were both wearing masks. That's been documented.
And I don't know if Betsy had chosen to mask
up permanently or whatever the case might be. But when
(34:13):
she was going about to all these stores, she was
wearing a mask. Okay, we're talking about that last day
of that activity on that card reader and she makes
it back home. Well, this thing is eating at her.
She's carrying this virus in her body. But maybe this
(34:36):
is kind of a reach for me because I'm a
romantic at heart. But I'm just thinking she knows that
she has a job to do. She loves her husband.
They've been a committed relationship for a long long time.
She is his caretaker. She knows that she's got to
get home and take care of him at all costs,
(34:57):
and she just pushes through. I don't know about you,
my wife, though, I will say I will say this,
it doesn't matter how bad my wife feels. If one
of us when my children were still at home and
obviously I'm still here, she could have a fever of
one hundred and if we're sick, she's going to put
(35:17):
us ahead of ourself. That's just the way she rolls. Listen,
I don't care how it comes off sounding. There's something
about women that that's the way they are. Thank God.
I mean, you know, if it wasn't for my wife,
I'd be dead probably, you know, she just.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
You know, she did save your life in January, that's
for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah she did. She did, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And some of them, you know, that's what we got
to do a cape for Kim.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Well, yeah, part of that goes to her cussing out
medical staff at the hospital for her, let's take care of.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
If she's got pontivirus. She is probably not. You mentioned,
she's not feeling her best. She goes to the drug store,
she's picking up whatever, and she's dealing with it.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
And we still have an answer to that. By the way,
we don't know if there were if it was meds
for him, or if it was meds for her, or
if it was something over the counter. She went to CVS.
I mean we all go to CVS, you know, or
have we all had been to CVS one time or another. Yeah,
And here's one o the things mister Hagman was. He
(36:26):
was taking till deltizing and it is a medication that
is used for high pertension and also in China, and
he's got really bad hypertension and he's had it for years.
As a matter of fact, autopsy revealed that he had
pretty severe kidney disease. And the kidney disease that he
(36:46):
had was high pertensive changes. And when you see a
kidney that has had these hygh pertensive changes, it's very
see how can I describe it? Most of the time,
we all know what a kidney bean looks like, right, Well,
kidney beans kind of had a smooth, glistening appearance to them.
(37:08):
When you see them hypertensive changes, and the kidney can
actually give the kidney the appearance it gives it non appearance.
It actually gets these kind of nodular spaces all over it.
I mean when you see it, it looks diseased, all right,
Well he had that going on and Dave, if he
had missed this medication on top of not being not
(37:34):
drinking water and you know, not taking on any kind
of nourishment, it's a death sentence. I mean, it really is.
In ninety five. So that's another added thing to this.
So you know, we know that she went to CVS
and she's walking around with hot fires and I can't
even begin to imagine how that feels. I know this
(37:55):
it attacks, It attacks lungs. That's numeral, know, that's where
it goes.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
So she's as she is getting worse apparently you know
her own health, and we know that she was in
the bathroom. We know the pills are spilled. She dies.
Gene Hackman is wandering around the house. You're not able
to focus on anything, not even able to provide nourishment
for himself. What is he doing? I mean, is he
(38:26):
going to sleep? Is he going to do? We know anything?
I mean I'm trying to figure out because based on
what we know, I can just picture this incredibly famous,
old wealthy man, a good guy from all reports, right,
and his last days are spent not even being able
(38:47):
to feed himself walking around the house.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, I know, yeah, and you think about, you know,
what's really important with patients with his condition is routine.
But there's that one kind of stalwart thing in his
life that's now absent, and that's Betsy. You know she is.
She is the lynch pen In in every aspect of
(39:12):
his life, guiding him about, walking him about, you know,
feeding him, giving him water, giving him comfort. And we
hate to think of this diminished state that he was in.
We hate to think that he suffered at all. We
(39:35):
hate to think that Betsy suffered at all. But we
do know this. They passed away together, days apart, but
yet together in their home and a home that they
had built over many years, and they are now together
(39:59):
forever in eternity. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
Bodybacks
Speaker 1 (40:13):
H
Body Times with Joseph Scott more.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I guess probably after the past two weeks, I've come
to view the word suspicious in a whole new light.
And granted I've been at this quite some time, and
I'm a grown man. I should have known better. But
(00:26):
with the death of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arkawa,
that term was thrown around, initially by the police in
New Mexico, and then it took off like wildfire with
(00:49):
the media. I guess we could spend an entire episode
talking about how the media will hook into something and
won't let it go, and all you're left with is
a memory of things that seemingly are unanswered because you
(01:09):
never could quite get past that one word suspicious are questionable.
But what we are left with is the passing of
one of the greatest actors, certainly in my lifetime, and
(01:33):
by all appearances, a very fine man as well. I'm
Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Well, Dave, we
finally have some answers relative to the death of Gene Hackman,
(01:58):
and more specifically his cause of death. His manner, for
my money, has never been in question. I have not
felt that necessarily that there was anything particularly suspicious about
(02:19):
Gene Hackman's death. But unfortunately we went down that road,
didn't we, relative to you know, I.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Think really it was because of not that he died
at the age of ninety five inside his home, but
it was the fact that his wife, who was thirty
one years younger than him, also was dead inside the
home where he was found inside what they have referred
(02:46):
to as the mudroom. I have never referred to my
utility room as a mudroom, but now I will. I actually, Joe,
when I first saw that and the mudroom, I thought
it was like like a room that you know, how
to have mud walls and some Oriental homes. Okay, I
thought that's what it was, and I thought his wife whatever.
I mainly that's what I thought. I didn't know it
(03:09):
was actually a room where you kicked the mud off
your shoes room. So anyway, but she was found in
the bathroom, so Jean's found in there and he's It
appeared based on what we were told, that maybe he
was getting dressed to go outside when he had some
type of cardiac event that caused him to die in
the mudroom. Meanwhile, his wife of many years is dead
(03:33):
in the bathroom with pills spilled around her, and a
dog in a I'm guessing a carrying case cage thing
also dead. And I think that was why there was
some suspicion air quotes on the deaths, because they both
died at the same time thirty one year age difference.
(03:54):
I think that's why there were questions about what really happened.
I think you were very board from the very beginning
that it wasn't suspicious. There's probably a reasonable explanation, and
I'm wondering, now, do we have that reasonable explanation.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, yeah, we do. I was never inclined to believe that,
you know, someone entered this private gated community in Santa Fe,
New Mexico, and specifically went to Gene Hackman's home and
(04:34):
decided to take the lives of both of these people.
I thought that that was bizarre in and of itself.
Some people had actually, you know, put forth that they
thought that that might be what happened, and then we
had the carbon monoxide. Now was that plausible? Yes, it
(04:55):
is plausible, and that does happen. It happened in cases
I've worked. It's happened over the years for a variety
of friends of mine from all across the nation where
you're going to if you're a medical legal death investigator
for any period of time, you're going to catch case
(05:16):
involving multiple deaths from carbon monoxide. It's going to happen.
You can't avoid that because it's everywhere, and you get
a high concentration and it will endure life very very quickly.
But when that cleared up and they knew that there
(05:38):
was nothing to it, and they're not prattling on about
marks on the body or anything like that, I knew
that it had to be something natural. And so my
mind began to drift towards this idea of and here,
let me give you some inside baseball information. I can
(05:59):
say it now, but I'd had one newsperson, and eventually
it became two that said to me before it was
ever made public, that he had dementia. And when I
heard that, and it's something that is not to be unexpected.
(06:20):
He's ninety five years old. Come on, give me break,
he's ninety five. And as it turns out, you know,
he's got Alzheimer's. And so when I heard that, I
knew that what we were faced with here was probably
going to be a death or death that you know,
(06:42):
kind of cycled around around some kind of natural manifestation.
With Betsy, it that that was the big question. It
wasn't so much mister Hackman, okay, but with his wife
that was a big question because as you had stated,
(07:03):
what was that age difference is like.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Thirty, she was sixty four, he was ninety five.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, thirty one years younger. What unless she's got some
kind of really bad heart history, or maybe she's got
some kind of cerebral blockage or something where she's going
to have a stroke. You know, I couldn't put my
finger on it. It was so it was so bizarre,
(07:30):
you know, how she could just fall over dead. But
one clue I think that we had was the fact
that she was in the bathroom, and in the bathroom
with us pills scattered all about, And it was the
fact that they were talking about how many pills were
(07:53):
scattered about on the counter and everything, and someone had
asked me, is this an overdose? And I'm thinking, well,
you know, if you overdose on medication, it stands to
reason there would be more in than out, if you
know what I mean, Uh, there wouldn't be pills scattered
all about. I mean to the point where they're talking
about that they were laying everywhere. You would think that
(08:16):
if that was the intention here, you know that you
wouldn't see all of these pills. They would have been ingested.
So it sounds like it was some some kind of
sudden event she had. From my understanding, she had just
returned with the dog from the vet. If I'm not mistaken,
(08:37):
this poor animal had undergone some type of treatment at
the veterinarian's office, and that's the reason the dog was
caged up, you know, to you know how they want
you to keep the animalize and keep them, yeah, and
keep them contained. And when she was seen, when she
(08:58):
was seen out and about she is now she's been seeing.
She's traveling around town all masked up. We know that
she had gone to CVS. We know that she had
gone to the farmer's market. Okay, we know that she
had actually on the pet store. So you've got her
(09:19):
making all of these locations. And I think that on
the last day that she was known to have been alive,
which was the eleventh, I believe that's when the last
activity on her card, her swipe card to get access
to the gate getting back. That's the last time that
they had recorded. I think it was like five just
(09:41):
after five pm that day, and then she rolled back
up to the house at that point.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Interesting how we can track people by our electronics now,
you know, whether it's a pass card or our phone
or yeah, in this case even a pacemaker is involved.
But let me I want to back up to something
you mentioned dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Is I kind of
thought that one led to the other. Is that what
(10:08):
is the difference or is there what are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, dementia is kind of a broad ranging term, and
there could be. But he, mister Hackman had been diagnosed
with with with Alzheimer's. And here's saying they didn't just
diagnosed him. It wasn't just his diagnosis wasn't merely Alzheimer's disease.
(10:34):
His diagnosis was advanced Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay, Okay, So that means years in development.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Oh yeah, yeah. And it's going to be variable dependent
upon what type of treatment and individuals a areergoing. And
I think some of your genetic predispositions relative to your
survive survivability, I think because it's not going to end
well either way. And with with him it had been
(11:06):
because this is a guy and I was doing some
some reading. Do you know that up until I know
that back in his sixties, he was still boxing. He
would he would Yeah, that may have just been shadow boxing.
But he had a workout partner, trainer. He could box.
(11:26):
He had boxed in the Marine Corps, you know, all
all those years ago, back in the fifties, and he
still had muscle memory for that. You know. His trainer
is even quoted as saying, you know, he he knew
the positions of the feet, he knew how to strike,
and he he could move really well. He played golf,
(11:47):
he did pilates, he did yoga, you know. So this
is not a guy and he watched what he ate.
You know, this is not a guy that that didn't
take care of himself. You know. But you know, seeing
Crew was see encruachment of time.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
No, Dave Well, when he retired. You know a lot
of actors they don't actually announce their retirement, you know,
although recently we have had a few do it. But
when Gene Hackman stopped performing, I remember it happening because
I enjoy his work. I enjoyed some of his last
work in film and Heartbreakers comes to mind, where he
(12:24):
plays the head of a tobacco company. He's always smoking.
Smoking's a bit. It's just it's just a funny guy.
But I loved his I just really enjoyed his performances.
And when he announced he was going to stop acting
and he was going to take time writing, you know,
something that he enjoyed doing and wanted to do. You know,
it's just you hit that age. I mean with actors
(12:45):
usually they just kind of fade, you know, because they're
parts dry up. But we've had Gene Hackman walking away.
I think Jack Nicholson did the same thing. Once Gene
Hackman said I'm done, you know, Nicholson followed not far behind.
That's why at the fiftieth anniversary for SNL, when Jack
Nicholson showed up, it was such a big deal. You
(13:08):
he introduced Adam Sandler's segment. And it wasn't a big, long,
drawn out thing. He was sitting in his position in
the seat, you know, but he did introduce Adam Sandler
and Jack said it was because he was having trouble
remembering lines and things like that. That's why he quit
performing several years ago, but we recently had the Bruce
(13:29):
Willis where he has something in the family of the
dementia family that is causing him to lose his ability
to communicate, to speak. And he was filming a movie
in Alabama, just outside of Birmingham in Bessemer, and a
couple of friends of mine were actually working on the
set and they were talking about how he was having
(13:50):
to be fed his lines.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yes, yeah, I heard that. I'd heard that from a
separate source of mind that was probably three years ago
from a uh guy's a producer I'm really good friends with,
and he had mentioned how, you know, they would have
to use Q cards or they would have one of
(14:11):
those tiny little things in their ear, you know, where
they could be fed that way.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
And I thought that was they at the time, it
was kind of positioned as he's so lazy, he doesn't
even bother to learn his lines, and then it didn't
It was not long after that last time that they
came out and said, you know, he is suffering from this.
So in the last few years of catching these types
of things, it kind of made me wonder what was
going on with with Gene Hackman. And as you mentioned,
(14:38):
dementia and then advanced Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Like I said, I think a lot of us don't
know the difference.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Between Here's Here's one of the really interesting things about
this condition is that did you know that the as
as this is a degenerat of disease, and so as
it progresses, the actual cells of the brain begin to diminish,
(15:09):
they actually grow smaller and smaller, and so at autopsy,
the brain will actually way less, uh say, for instance,
as opposed to somebody of the same age group that
is not suffering from this condition, the brain will actually
(15:32):
be smaller. And you know, isn't that isn't that interesting
because many times you you this kind of it's almost
like a childlike regression. You know that you see where
individuals that have this malady, they they become It's it
(15:56):
starts off where they're having uh they can't put thoughts
together very well, they can't think things through like they
once could, and they'll present with being confused, you know,
and then over a period of time they do become
more childlike until they're almost infantile. And that's that's the
(16:16):
really horrible thing about this case. The horror of the
fact that your bride who you've been married to all
these years passes on and that you might not have
(16:38):
any awareness that she's left. I think most of us
can look back over our lives and we have these
(17:03):
moments in time where we're confused about things, or we
don't know what to do next, and and you know,
we can't find the words for something. I mean, you know,
just insert whatever phrase you want to into that. In
the case of Gene Hackman, there this is a constant
(17:28):
fight that he had been fighting for a long long time. Uh.
The thing that really sent a chill up and down
my spine with Betsy was the fact that she had
probably and I really thought this was more accurate than
(17:48):
initially uh what people were saying. I think that because
they kept using the term mummifoed, she had. She had
been down for in my opinion, for several days prior
to him passing on. And now we do know that
his pacemaker actually registered his last activity on the seventeenth.
(18:13):
And let's let's do the math on this. You know,
she her last activity that we know of, okay, with
the card key for the front gate to the neighborhood
was on the eleventh, So I don't know five six
days perhaps that, you know, assuming that when she walked
(18:36):
through the door that she passed on at that moment time.
And then you combine that with what I believe was
his total dependency upon her. He had to have her
day to survive, I mean, truly to survive. He needed
her guidance. Again, I think I mentioned this in our
(18:58):
initial episode about about their deaths. There was that image
where you could see him walking or crossing their street
and he was holding on to her, you know, dependent
upon her to you know, ambulate from one side of
the street to the other to get her about. And
(19:22):
that's got to be that's got to be so very
difficult for a man that was so virile. You know,
as a matter of fact, on screen he could be
very scary. You know, he looked like he could, you know,
snap your neck if he wanted to. I'm thinking about
Mississippi burning right now, you know, and those those If
(19:43):
you've never seen that movie, you just need to see
the one scene in there involving him and Michael Rooker.
It will really that's that that's a great summation of
how much power he had. It is incredible to see
him and he was like that in all his roles,
you always felt like there was something just beneath the
surface with him that was ready to explode at any
(20:06):
moment in time. And he had this kind of menacing
laugh that he would give, you know, like yeah, you know,
kind of like I could never do it justice. But
it was just you always felt like he was right there.
But then at the end, I believe that he probably
Dave unfortunately, probably wandered around that house for several days
(20:29):
with her lying in that bathroom and there, you know,
there was nothing, he could do nothing. You know, he's
a childlike state and completely incapable of taking care of himself.
I'm surprised he actually maybe lasted as long as he did.
(20:52):
You know, that might go to how tough he was.
But this is how I know this. Did you know
that at autopsy they checked his stomach there was no
food whatsoever. He had not eaten. He had not eaten,
And that gives you an indication that you know, he's
already in diminished state and then most physically and psychologically,
(21:20):
and then to go without food, that's just one more
nail in the coffin day. We know.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
I was reading the BBC did an article about it.
And says this actor Gene Hackman, was alone. The two
time Academy Award winner, didn't make any calls and missed meals.
Medical experts say it's possible the ninety five year old,
who was in declining health and suffering from advanced stages
of Alzheimer's disease, did not even realize his wife of
(21:48):
more than thirty years was dead in the home where
he was living. If he did, experts tell the BBC,
he likely went through various stages of confusion and grief
trying to wake her up before the disease caused him
to become distracted or too overwhelmed to act, a process
that likely repeated for days before he too died. That's
(22:09):
exactly what you described, Joe, of not being able to
understand or maintain focus enough to do anything about it
and even care for himself.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah. Wow, And you know, I don't know, I don't
want to wax to ethereal here, but you know, talking
about dying of a broken heart and there's absolutely nothing
you can do about it and being trapped, and that's
the way a lot of people describe the disease itself
as being trapped and the fact that he was in there.
(22:43):
I think that's that's the most and for me in
this case, that's the biggest takeaway because they lived a
life that was that kept them isolated to a great
degree where I think that as he had gotten up
in age, and matter of fact, one of the articles
(23:05):
that I'd read where they were interviewing this friend of
his that was a trainer, said that he was really
conscious of the way he looked now, you know, and
he's an actor obviously that you know, that says a lot.
You know that he didn't even like looking at old
(23:28):
films because he knew that he wasn't that person anymore.
And yeah, it does. It does make sense.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Wife, Joe. I mean, we know that he was in
a diminished capacity. We know that, you know, dementia and
advanced Alzheimer's, and he was ninety five. But his sixty
four year old wife, how did she die? What happened
to her? And why were they both in various stages
of mummification when they were found?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, I don't. Again, even though well even though the
record itself says or the the let me see, what's
the proper phraseology, the affidavit for the warrant actually alludes
to the fact that she was beginning to mumify, and
(24:19):
it said that he was similar. Well, I don't know
what similar means. That's not a medical legal report. That's
not the way we would have written it in my field,
because you take both individuals. Yeah, probably the investigator that
was trying to get the warrant, you know, And I
understand why they wrote it, and it's their purpose is
(24:40):
different than our purpose. But still I don't know how
valid that is as far as the assessment of his remains.
I suspect that they did not appear the same, absolutely
the same. I think that he had not He did
not show as much postwarum change as she did. Now
(25:03):
there would have been some, obviously, but not to the
degree that she was okay, And so I think we
have to take that with a grain of salt, you know,
relative to how they appeared when compared to one another.
And I don't know if that's necessarily a great comparison
or not. But in the case of Betsy Arkawa's cause
(25:28):
of death, I was struck by something so out of
left field, and many of us were. We never saw
it coming. And the origins of her death lie in
a tiny Rodent. Many moons ago, when I was going
(26:03):
through training in the Army, we were placed on the
US Mexico border. And again this is a long time ago.
This is before the days of what we're currently experiencing
with illegal immigration, and we had set up on a
(26:25):
site where we would surveil an area for a period
of time. And during that time I saw a manner
of wildlife. I even saw a sidewinder, which I'd never
seen before, which was really bizarre. But then my friends
noticed that were out there, and I finally saw one
these little mice that were out there. And the thing
(26:48):
about these little mice is that they had really long
long tails and that they could hop, and when I
say hop, I mean like really hop high in the air,
and they would eat food give it to them. One
of my friends actually enticed one of these mice in
the air with a chrumb of food from sea rats
(27:09):
to jump up and take this cracker from him. And
as it turns out, that little species of mice plays
into the death of Betsy Arkawa, and I guess by
default plays into the death of gene Hagwan Dave.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Because she was unable to care for him after she passed.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Wow. Yeah, it's like the old poema, you know, for
the want of a nail, a horse shoe was lost.
Of a horseshoe, a horse was lost. Yeah, it's kind
of It's amazing and it the way life intersects that way, Dave.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
It's called hauntavirus. Yeah, this is I remember a movie
that came out years ago with Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo,
Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, and it was called Outbreak,
and it was in the haunt of virus was mentioned
in New Mexico. What actually is that as a respiratory disease?
(28:11):
As it goes? What is it? How does it? I mean,
I have no clue other than a movie.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Listen, not many people do you. Obviously, you know those
in the know, in particularly in people that are epidemiologists
and people that study these bizarre kinds of diseases that
are out there, they would be up to snuff, as
(28:38):
they say, on these on this particular disease, it's not
something that is encountered. And let me frame it for you,
even with a tighter focus. New Mexico is considered to
be a hotbed for haunted virus. And I think that
they might experience maybe twenty nine to deaths per amum,
(29:01):
I think, which is pretty significant. But it's not even
like the flu okay, I mean, it's not that the
circumstances have to be just right in order for this
to end in some kind of terminal event. The disease
(29:23):
itself is actually spread through three ways, and the number
one carrier is carried by rodents. But according to their
public health people in New Mexico, which by the way,
I got to tell you this for folks that don't know.
Did you know that the public Health service in the
(29:44):
state of New Mexico actually administers the State Medical Examiner's Office,
which is State Medical Examiner, is not affiliated with law enforcement,
which I think is grand because it is a scientific pursuit.
They cannsider it to be public health, you know, and
(30:05):
it's catch all, and I think that it's great. So
they work on what's called a medical investigative model, and
I'm just I love it, absolutely love it that it's
separate from any kind of law enforcement agency because, you know,
the lawn share of death that they work that all
of us work in my field are not homicides. Lawn share,
(30:30):
you know, natural death and we, yeah, we work accidents,
and you know, we're the ones that work all the accidents.
We're the ones that work all of those suicides and
the homicides and everything else. But they view it through
a different lens than we do. So anyway, the State
Health Department, actually, you know, has has talked about how
(30:53):
it is. It's been identified as a hotbed for this
CDC has identified it as a hotbed for this virus.
But the way it spread is three ways, either saliva
of the rodent, urine of the rodent, or feces. And
they ran pretty extensive testing at the home. Inside of
(31:21):
this home. This is a big house, man, it's a
really big place. And they didn't see they didn't see
any evidence of mouse droppings inside of the house, according
to what they're saying. Okay, however, when they went out
to the outbuildings or outbuilding, they did see this. They
(31:45):
did see mouse droppings out there. And so let's just
say that Betsy and I don't know, I don't know
this for a fact. Okay, Well, let's just say and
she's a primary caretaker here, so I'm sure that she
busies herself through the day cleaning and those sort of things.
Maybe she went out to the outbuilding. Okay, this is
(32:09):
one possible scenario. Just one went out to the outbuilding
and she had a broom in her hand, and she
began sweeping up out there.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Well, as she's sweeping up, those remnant of feces that
are out there suddenly become aerosolized. So if you think about, like,
have you ever been standing by a window with the
sun beaming through and you could see the dust paricles? Okay,
that's essentially aerosolized. Okay, dust particles that you're seeing. Well,
(32:43):
she stirs this up with a broom for instance. All right,
and while she's out there, she's got to breathe. Right,
while she's out there, takes a deep breath. Well, guess
what she's just done. She is just taking the stuff up.
(33:04):
And the mice are carrying this virus within them and
it's in their excrement. Okay, and now she's introduced this
into her system. Well, we don't know how long she
had had this. This is really weird because you know,
they say that I was reading about this because I
got to tell you, Dave, I've never worked a case
(33:26):
of hauntavirus, never ever did you know that the incubation period.
You're going to be amazed by this. The incubation period
is one to eight weeks. That's how va this is
how big this number one to eight weeks, I know, man,
So you're thinking it takes that long for this thing
(33:47):
to incubate and then I guess begin to present.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
We do know that ever since COVID, or in the
midst of COVID, they did self isolate. During that period
of time, they were both wearing masks. That's been documented.
And I don't know if Betsy had chosen to mask
up permanently or whatever the case might be. But when
(34:13):
she was going about to all these stores, she was
wearing a mask. Okay, we're talking about that last day
of that activity on that card reader and she makes
it back home. Well, this thing is eating at her.
She's carrying this virus in her body. But maybe this
(34:36):
is kind of a reach for me because I'm a
romantic at heart. But I'm just thinking she knows that
she has a job to do. She loves her husband.
They've been a committed relationship for a long long time.
She is his caretaker. She knows that she's got to
get home and take care of him at all costs,
(34:57):
and she just pushes through. I don't know about you,
my wife, though, I will say I will say this,
it doesn't matter how bad my wife feels. If one
of us when my children were still at home and
obviously I'm still here, she could have a fever of
one hundred and if we're sick, she's going to put
(35:17):
us ahead of ourself. That's just the way she rolls. Listen,
I don't care how it comes off sounding. There's something
about women that that's the way they are. Thank God.
I mean, you know, if it wasn't for my wife,
I'd be dead probably, you know, she just.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
You know, she did save your life in January, that's
for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah she did. She did, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
And some of them, you know, that's what we got
to do a cape for Kim.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Well, yeah, part of that goes to her cussing out
medical staff at the hospital for her, let's take care of.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
If she's got pontivirus. She is probably not. You mentioned,
she's not feeling her best. She goes to the drug store,
she's picking up whatever, and she's dealing with it.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
And we still have an answer to that. By the way,
we don't know if there were if it was meds
for him, or if it was meds for her, or
if it was something over the counter. She went to CVS.
I mean we all go to CVS, you know, or
have we all had been to CVS one time or another. Yeah,
And here's one o the things mister Hagman was. He
(36:26):
was taking till deltizing and it is a medication that
is used for high pertension and also in China, and
he's got really bad hypertension and he's had it for years.
As a matter of fact, autopsy revealed that he had
pretty severe kidney disease. And the kidney disease that he
(36:46):
had was high pertensive changes. And when you see a
kidney that has had these hygh pertensive changes, it's very
see how can I describe it? Most of the time,
we all know what a kidney bean looks like, right, Well,
kidney beans kind of had a smooth, glistening appearance to them.
(37:08):
When you see them hypertensive changes, and the kidney can
actually give the kidney the appearance it gives it non appearance.
It actually gets these kind of nodular spaces all over it.
I mean when you see it, it looks diseased, all right,
Well he had that going on and Dave, if he
had missed this medication on top of not being not
(37:34):
drinking water and you know, not taking on any kind
of nourishment, it's a death sentence. I mean, it really is.
In ninety five. So that's another added thing to this.
So you know, we know that she went to CVS
and she's walking around with hot fires and I can't
even begin to imagine how that feels. I know this
(37:55):
it attacks, It attacks lungs. That's numeral, know, that's where
it goes.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
So she's as she is getting worse apparently you know
her own health, and we know that she was in
the bathroom. We know the pills are spilled. She dies.
Gene Hackman is wandering around the house. You're not able
to focus on anything, not even able to provide nourishment
for himself. What is he doing? I mean, is he
(38:26):
going to sleep? Is he going to do? We know anything?
I mean I'm trying to figure out because based on
what we know, I can just picture this incredibly famous,
old wealthy man, a good guy from all reports, right,
and his last days are spent not even being able
(38:47):
to feed himself walking around the house.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, I know, yeah, and you think about, you know,
what's really important with patients with his condition is routine.
But there's that one kind of stalwart thing in his
life that's now absent, and that's Betsy. You know she is.
She is the lynch pen In in every aspect of
(39:12):
his life, guiding him about, walking him about, you know,
feeding him, giving him water, giving him comfort. And we
hate to think of this diminished state that he was in.
We hate to think that he suffered at all. We
(39:35):
hate to think that Betsy suffered at all. But we
do know this. They passed away together, days apart, but
yet together in their home and a home that they
had built over many years, and they are now together
(39:59):
forever in eternity. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
Bodybacks
Speaker 1 (40:13):
H
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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