The contractor who found Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa’s decomposing bodies last month said he “knew something was wrong” with the couple.
Jesse Kesler, who had worked for the two-time Oscar winner, 95, and his wife, 65, for 16 years, claims he tried to organize a wellness check before discovering their lifeless bodies at their Santa Fe home.
In an interview with Fox News, Kesler said he stopped by Hackman’s house after he hadn’t heard from Arakawa in two weeks — after previously speaking with her “every three days.”
“We were getting pretty worried,” Kesler told the outlet. “We knew something was wrong.”
“We asked law enforcement for advice on how to do it. We started the process of a wellness check. We had to involve a family member to do a wellness check. They had to have an authorization from a family member,” he added.
However, despite his efforts in reaching Hackman’s family, Kesler said he was unable to get through. As a result, he decided to pay Hackman and Arakawa a visit himself.
“We couldn’t get hold of any family members…We were in the process of getting hold of a family member, and it was taking too long,” he said. “And finally, finally, I saw the security guard, and that’s when me and him went in.”
But the “French Connection” actor’s daughter, Leslie, told the outlet that she has never spoken to Kesler and was unaware of anyone looking to perform a wellness check on her famous dad.
“No one had reached out,” she said, adding that the authorities did not contact her about her father’s well-being until he was found dead.
Leslie’s response was echoed by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, who told the outlet they were not contacted by anyone prior to February 26 — the day the discovery was made.
According to the Santa Fe medical examiner, Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome — a rare rat-borne respiratory disease.
Hackman, for his part, died from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributing factor.
One of their three dogs, which was in a crate recovering from surgery, died of starvation and dehydration, a state necropsy report has revealed.
Earlier this week, authorities investigating the couple’s death have proposed a new timeline of events after a Santa Fe doctor claimed that Arakawa called his clinic on February 12 — one day after police believed she died.
The claim, made by Dr. Josiah Child of Cloudberry Health in New Mexico, immediately cast doubt on the timeline of events brought forward by officials earlier this month.
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