re: RIP Gene Hackman, wife Betsy, and his dog pass away at his New Mexico home

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there were 2 dogs who survived.

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For now..

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The known physical evidence leads to the grief OD pill suicide theory, but it makes no logical sense.

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It would be conspiratorial to suggest the scene was staged, but that's where I'm leaning.

Thyroid medication and blood pressure medication are poor candidates for suicide. Obviously, toxicology is going to rule in/out some of these possibilities.

No sign of forced entry or anything taken. Not sure how they figure that if they don't have an inventory completed (before/after) and the 2 occupants are dead.

I hesitate to say it, but I would immediately suspect the kids. They would have the most to gain. Next would be folks they regularly employed/had contact with. There were 2 houses on this property and significant grounds to maintain. They were in the main house, perhaps 8 to 10 days without anyone seeing them/talking to them? Knowing there must be folks coming through for landscaping, housekeeping, just routine things for a property that size with elderly folks?

Probably 10 days?

Tv said up to 90 days for results.

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New dog info: only one of the three was at the home:

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The 2 surviving dogs were at the house when police arrived, but they were put in the pet facility by the time news started to report the sheriff’s error on which breed of dog was found dead.

The below is about the pet chiropractor, who dealt with the German shepherd, reading about the dog that was initially reported to have died after the 2 surviving dogs were already taken to pet day care place. She thought it was the dog she knew due to sheriff’s warrant.

They found them and bodies on one day, but most of the news with details including the dog started the following day which is when she read about the dead dog

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Bear the German Shepherd wasn’t dead at all, the dog was alive and well, resting at a pet day care facility in Santa Fe, along with the couple’s other dog, Nikita, a 7-year-old Akita-shepherd mix.

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This guy took the 2 surviving dogs found around or in the house on Wednesday or whatever the day was the police first went to house to his facility. So they went from house to facility before news really started coming out about the situation the next morning.

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Her body was found in a closed crate in the home, according to Joey Padilla, who took the surviving dogs to his facility, Santa Fe Tails.

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The biggest error being corrected was which dog was found in closed crate near the wife. It wasn’t the German Shepherd, but it was the Australian Kelpie mix.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2025/03/03/sheriff-gene-hackman-dead-dog-misidentified/81174682007/

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There were 2 houses on this property and significant grounds to maintain. They were in the main house, perhaps 8 to 10 days without anyone seeing them/talking to them? Knowing there must be folks coming through for landscaping, housekeeping, just routine things for a property that size with elderly folks?

Probably 10 days?

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This is what I find baffling. I know they were very private people, but surely they had hired folks who help with the house and the property more than the once a month pest control guy who showed up and contacted neighborhood security when no one answered the door.

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baldona

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You make the dumbest comments

Sometimes I think it's someone trolling, then I see your name.

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Pet chiropractor?

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Made me wonder if a license is required to be an animal chiropractor in NM, or if she just calls herself that?

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Just five months earlier, Gaber, an animal chiropractor, had run her hands along Bear’s fur, adjusting the animal’s atlas vertebrae, the topmost vertebrae in the cervical spine. She had cooed the German shepherd and laughed with Arakawa.

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She probably just rubs or scratches dog’s back and neck for a little bit and then charges $350.

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There were 2 houses on this property and significant grounds to maintain. They were in the main house, perhaps 8 to 10 days without anyone seeing them/talking to them? Knowing there must be folks coming through for landscaping, housekeeping, just routine things for a property that size with elderly folks?

Probably 10 days?

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This is what I find baffling. I know they were very private people, but surely they had hired folks who help with the house and the property more than the once a month pest control guy who showed up and contacted neighborhood security when no one answered the door.

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Last person I have read about seeing them alive was the same maintenance people who called security, and they said that they had seen them 2 weeks prior to that day.

Multiple people have said how protective she was of him and their privacy. If he was starting to decline quicker they may have rescheduled or cut back on some help, or maybe some showed up but only rang bell, called, and then left not thinking just one time of them not there was strange or worrisome.

She was 65, so if she was in relatively good health in order to maintain privacy they may not have set up any home health services or health checks not really thinking that she might pass away first (if that’s what happened). Not being seen or heard from for weeks might also have been normal enough that not enough time had passed for anyone else to call or go by house to check on them yet especially with her being younger and healthier than Hackman.

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- she had a medical emergency/heart attack/something along those lines and died
- he has dementia or alzheimers and was unable to figure out how to call for help or take care of himself and died later
- the dog starved to death

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I agree. He also might have fallen, broken something, and couldn’t get himself up to call for help as they didn’t account for her passing away before him like this and leaving him alone without help or ability to call for help like wearing an Apple Watch or something like a life alert (that’s if he still had the mental and physical ability to use these for emergencies).

By all reports they loved those dogs. I can’t see her harming herself and purposely leaving the dog locked up in a crate to starve to death.

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I agree. He also might have fallen, broken something, and couldn’t get himself up to call for help as they didn’t account for her passing away before him like this and leaving him alone without help or ability to call for help like wearing an Apple Watch or something like a life alert (that’s if he still had the mental and physical ability to use these for emergencies). By all reports they loved those dogs. I can’t see her harming herself and purposely leaving the dog locked up in a crate to starve to death.

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This is a really solid theory.