News

Gene Hackman Lost His Wife and Caregiver, and Spent 7 Days Alone

Published

12 months ago

March 8, 2025

Gene Hackman Lost His Wife and Caregiver, and Spent 7 Days Alone

Before Gene Hackman faded from public view in his adopted hometown of Santa Fe, N.M., the locals would see the aging movie star on the golf course or in his truck or walking his beloved dogs in the enchanted western city, amid the mesquite, juniper and pinyon pine.

His wife, Betsy Arakawa, was often alongside him. There was much about his life that she managed. She set up the golf games with his friends. She policed his diet, given the heart trouble that had dogged him for decades. She diluted his wine with soda water. She typed and edited the novels he wrote by hand.

She also apparently took on the role of sole caregiver as he endured the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s. Thirty years his junior, she must have planned to see him to his end, in their home.

And so it was all the more jarring on Friday when authorities in New Mexico revealed more dark turns in the mystery of how the couple died last month in their four-bedroom house, hidden by trees at the end of a luxurious cul-de-sac east of the city.

Officials said the couple died of natural causes, he of heart disease and she of a rare viral infection. But it was Ms. Arakawa — the caregiver, lover, protector — who died first, perhaps on Feb. 11, leaving Mr. Hackman, 95 years old with advanced Alzheimer’s, alone in the house for days. He is believed to have died a week later, on Feb. 18.

Their decomposing bodies were not discovered for yet another eight days, when a maintenance worker called a security guard to the house after no one came to the door. Emergency workers found Ms. Arakawa, 65, on the floor of a bathroom near a medicine bottle and spilled pills. Zinna, one of their three dogs, was dead in a crate in a closet. The body of Mr. Hackman was discovered in a mud room, with slippers and a cane.

New Mexico’s chief medical examiner said on Friday that Alzheimer’s disease was a contributing factor in Mr. Hackman’s death. Ms. Arakawa died of hantavirus, which is contracted through exposure to excrement from rodents, often the deer mouse in New Mexico.

The exact details of what happened in the house over the course of that week may never be known. Friends and neighbors said that the couple had increasingly receded into the private confines of their hillside house since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the timeline presented Friday raises the terrifying possibility that Mr. Hackman, a Marine veteran and actor of consummate precision and control, had spent days in the presence of his fallen wife, too disoriented or feeble to call for help — trapped, essentially, in the handsome, secluded home that had been his reward for a life toiling in the limelight.

Mr. Hackman was drawn to Santa Fe in the late 1980s, shortly after his divorce from his first wife. He had already earned an Oscar for his starring role in the 1971 thriller, “The French Connection.” Another Oscar, as a supporting actor in the 1992 western “Unforgiven,” would come later.

His father, who abandoned the family when Mr. Hackman was 13, was a pressman for the local newspaper. His mother was a waitress. But Mr. Hackman had a bohemian streak, and he was drawn to Santa Fe’s stunning natural landscape and the artists the landscape inspired. He would become one of them, spending much of the second half of his life painting, sculpting and writing fiction in Santa Fe, far from the trophy homes of Beverly Hills that many celebrities of his caliber inhabit.

Ms. Arakawa was a classical pianist, born in Hawaii. She met Mr. Hackman in Los Angeles at a fitness center where she had a part-time job. He had forgotten his entry card, and she refused to let him in, according to Rodney Hatfield, a friend. They married in 1991. Friends said that the relationship seemed natural, despite the age difference.

“That part never came to mind because they seemed equal in so many ways,” said a friend, Susan Contreras. “She was a personality unto herself.”

The life they settled into in Santa Fe was both charmed and strikingly normal. Architectural Digest featured an earlier hilltop house they owned outside of town, built to their specifications in an elegant Southwestern style. Mr. Hackman joined the board of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, one of the city’s storied cultural gems. They invested in a restaurant, Jinja, which displayed Mr. Hackman’s paintings and named a house mai tai cocktail in his honor.

But others remembered a man who often seemed to fit the mold of the Everyman he so often played onscreen. Helen Dufreche, a former neighbor, recalled meeting Mr. Hackman for the first time about a decade ago. He was wearing a baseball cap and had pulled up alongside her in a truck to compliment her dachshunds.

“What cute puppies!” he said.

Tom Allin, a longtime friend of Mr. Hackman’s, said Ms. Arakawa had always served as something of a gatekeeper for her famous husband. Over a 20-year friendship with Mr. Hackman, Mr. Allin never recalled speaking to him over the phone or emailing with him. He would always set up golf games or visits through Ms. Arakawa. Uninterested in technology, Mr. Hackman did not have a cellphone that Mr. Allin knew about.

“She was very protective of him,” Mr. Allin said, adding that Mr. Hackman seemed happy to have his wife run things.

He recalled Mr. Hackman saying that he would have been dead “long ago” without his wife taking care of him and ensuring that he ate healthily.

In January 2020, just before the pandemic, Mr. Allin said, he saw his friend for his 90th birthday in Islamorada, Fla. He recalls Ms. Arakawa mixing soda water into his wine. “She just really looked after him,” he said.

He also said that he could sense that Mr. Hackman was declining. The couple had a tradition where Mr. Hackman would cook dinner each year for Ms. Arakawa’s birthday. In 2023, she came home expecting a meal, Mr. Allin recalled, but Mr. Hackman had forgotten their ritual.

Like many older Americans, Mr. Hackman retreated indoors during the Covid crisis to stay safe. In recent years, neighbors in Santa Fe Summit, the gated community where the couple lived, said they had seen no sign of the couple, except for their trash cans on the side of the road, waiting to be picked up.

During Friday’s news conference, Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County said that investigators had determined that on Feb. 9, a Sunday, Ms. Arakawa had picked up Zinna from a veterinarian after the dog underwent a procedure, which could explain why Zinna was being kept in a crate.

On Feb. 11, perhaps hours before she died, Ms. Arakawa emailed her massage therapist in the morning and then went to a grocery store in the afternoon. She was also captured on surveillance video making a brief stop at a pharmacy. Sheriff Mendoza said he believed she wore a mask that day while in public, which she often did to avoid bringing any illnesses back to her husband, friends said.

Ms. Arakawa stopped by a local pet food store later that afternoon and then returned to her neighborhood around 5:15 p.m., the sheriff said. She did not respond to any emails after that day.

Asked whether the couple had anyone taking care of Mr. Hackman, Sheriff Mendoza said, “At this point, there’s no indication that there was a caretaker at the home.”

James Everett, who lived part-time in the neighborhood for about five years, said in an interview last week that he found it unusual that the couple did not have any caretakers, given Mr. Hackman’s age. “I know when my dad was 95, 96, 97, 98, we had a live-in cook and maid for him,” he said. “I’m surprised they didn’t have them.”

Another neighbor, Robert Cecil, wondered whether the couple’s desire for privacy was, in the end, a “weakness” that contributed to the horror that befell them.

But Mr. Hatfield, Mr. Hackman’s longtime friend, said that Mr. Hackman loved Santa Fe because it allowed him to live a life that was not always that of a star. “I know that Gene did not like the role of celebrity,” he said. “It was pretty obvious.”

Another friend, Stuart Ashman, said that solitude was often the goal for people who migrated to Santa Fe. “People come here as a way to hide out,” he said. “They certainly did.”

Related Topics:Alzheimers Disease Arakawa Betsy (1959-2025)Featured Gene Hackman Santa Fe (NM)

Click to comment

News

How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Published

7 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

How the federal government is painting immigrants as criminals on social media

Getty Images, Dept. of Homeland Security and The White House via X/Collage by Emily Bogle/NPR

Two days after At Chandee, who goes by Ricky, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the White House’s X account posted about him, calling the 52-year-old the “WORST OF WORST” and a “CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN.”

Except that the photo the White House posted was of a different person. The post also incorrectly claimed Chandee had multiple felony convictions — he has one, for second-degree assault in 1993 when he was 18 years old. He shot two people in the legs and served three years in prison.

At “Ricky” Chandee with his wife, Tina Huynh-Chandee.

Via the Chandee family

hide caption

toggle caption

Via the Chandee family

Chandee, who came to the U.S. as a child refugee, was ordered to be deported back to his home country, Laos. But Laos had not been accepting all of the people the U.S. wanted it to, so the federal government determined that it was likely infeasible to deport him, his lawyer Linus Chan told NPR. Chandee therefore was granted permission to stay in the U.S. and work so long as he checked in with immigration authorities periodically. He has not missed a check-in in over 30 years and has not had another criminal incident.

People who know Chandee do not see him as “worst of the worst.”

After Chandee completed his prison sentence, he finished school and became an engineering technician. He worked for the City of Minneapolis for 26 years, became a father, and his son grew up to join the military.

In his free time, Chandee enjoys hiking and foraging for mushrooms, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

“We are proud to work alongside At ‘Ricky’ Chandee,” said Tim Sexton, Director of Public Works for the City of Minneapolis in a statement. “I don’t understand why he would be a target for removal now, why he was brutally detained and swiftly flown to Texas, or how his removal benefits our city or country.” Chandee is petitioning for his release in federal court.

Chandee’s case is not unique

Social media accounts from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and other immigration agencies have spent much of the past year posting about people detained in the administration’s immigration crackdown, typically portraying them as hardened, violent criminals. That’s even as over 70% of the people detained don’t have criminal records according to ICE data.

NPR’s research of cases in Minnesota shows that while many of the people who have been highlighted on social media do have recent, serious criminal records, about a quarter are like Chandee, with decades-old convictions, minor offenses or only pending criminal proceedings. Scholars of immigration, media and criminal law say such a media campaign is unprecedented and paints a distorted picture of immigrants and crime.

A year into President Trump’s second term, the X accounts of DHS and ICE have posted about more than 2,000 people who were targets of mass deportation efforts. Starting late last March, DHS and ICE began posting on X on a near daily basis, often highlighting apprehensions of multiple people a day, an NPR review of government social media posts show.

Among the 2,000 people highlighted by the agencies, NPR identified 130 who were arrested by federal agents in Minnesota and tried to verify the government’s statements about their criminal histories.

In most of the social media posts, the government did not provide the state where the conviction occurred or the person’s age. Public court records do not tend to include photos so definitive identification can be a challenge.

NPR derived its findings from cases where it was able to locate a name and matching criminal history in the Minnesota court and detention system, in nationwide criminal history databases, sex offender databases, and in some cases, federal courts and other state courts.

In 19 of the 130 cases, roughly 1-in-7, public records show the most recent convictions were at least 20 years ago.

Seventeen of the 19 cases with old convictions did include violent crimes like homicide and first-degree sexual assault. ICE provided some of those names to Fox News as key examples of the agency’s accomplishments. “It’s the most disturbing list I’ve ever seen,” said Fox News reporter Bill Melugin on X, highlighting the criminal convictions of each person on the list.

For seven people, their only criminal history involved driving under the influence or disorderly conduct.

ICE agents approach a house before detaining two people in Minneapolis on Jan. 13.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Six of the 130 Minnesota cases highlighted by the administration involved people with no criminal convictions. The government’s social media posts for those six instead rely upon the charges and arrests as evidence of their criminality, even though arrests don’t always lead to charges and charges can be dismissed.

In yet another case, the government highlighted a criminal charge even while noting it had been dismissed. (The person did have other existing convictions.)

For 37 of the 130 people, NPR was unable to confirm matching criminal history after consulting the databases and news coverage. Some of the names turned up no criminal history at all. The government said these people committed crimes ranging from homicide and assault to drug trafficking, and cited one by name to Fox News. NPR tried to reach out to all 37 people and their families for comment but did not receive a response from any.

In a statement to NPR, DHS’s chief spokesperson Lauren Bis did not dispute NPR’s findings or provide documentation where NPR wasn’t able to confirm matching criminal history.

“The fact that NPR is defending murderers and pedophiles is gross,” Bis wrote. “We hear far too much about criminals and not enough about their victims.” before listing four of the people with old convictions of homicide and sexual assault, underlining the date of deportation order for three of them.

Images designed to trigger emotion

The stream of social media posts with photos of mostly nonwhite people are meant to draw an emotional response, says Leo Chavez, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. They “have been used repeatedly over and over to get people to buy into, really drastic, drastic and draconian actions and policies,” he said.

Chavez, whose most recent book is The Latino Threat: How Alarmist Rhetoric Misrepresents Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, recalls how political campaigns in past decades presented images of Latinos — often men — without context. “Just by showing their image, showing brown people, particularly brown men, it’s supposed to be scary.”

The fact that the government’s social media posts come with statements about criminal history as well as photos reinforces that emotional response, Chavez said. DHS has previously acknowledged inaccuracies on their website. But even if the department issues corrections, Chavez said, “the goal was actually achieved, which was to reinforce the criminality and the visualization.”

CNN’s analysis of DHS’s “Arrested: Worst of the Worst” website showed that for hundreds out of about 25,000 people posted on the website, the crimes listed were not violent felonies. Instead, DHS listed people with records that included traffic offenses, marijuana possession or illegal reentry. DHS said the website had a “glitch” that it will fix but also that the people in question “have [committed] additional crimes.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this when it comes to immigration enforcement in the modern era,” said Juliet Stumpf, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School who studies the intersection of immigration and criminal law. She said the drumbeat of social media posts focused on specific individuals was like “FBI’s most wanted posters” or “like reality TV shows.”

Then-DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin, flanked by deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Madison Sheahan (left), and Acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, speaks during a news conference at ICE Headquarters, in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 2025.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Stumpf drew a parallel with an incident from the 1950s when the U.S. government deported two permanent residents suspected of being communists. “The government was kind of proclaiming and celebrating their deportation because getting rid of these communists was making the country safer,” said Stumpf, “Maybe that’s comparable to something like [this].”

An analysis by the Deportation Data Project shows a dramatic increase in arrests of noncitizens without criminal records during President Trump’s current term compared to President Biden’s term.

“If you look at research, immigrants actually tend to commit fewer crimes than even U.S. citizens do. And that’s true of immigrants who have lawful status here and immigrants who don’t,” said Stumpf. “If we have a number of social media posts that are painting immigrants as the worst of the worst…it’s actually really putting out a distorted version of reality about who immigrants actually are.”

Some claims are disputed by other authorities

In some posts, DHS and ICE have also used photos of people and statements about their criminal histories to burnish the federal government’s accomplishments, defend their agents and criticize states like Minnesota. State and local authorities have in turn pushed back, and some of the federal government’s claims about the people it has detained have been met with setbacks in the courts.

DHS accused Minnesota’s Cottonwood County of not honoring detainers, written requests by ICE to hold prisoners in custody for a period of time so ICE can pick them up. In one post, the agency identified a person who was charged with child sexual abuse, writing “This is who sanctuary city politicians and anti-ICE agitators are defending.”

The Cottonwood County sheriff’s office said DHS’s post “misrepresented the truth” in their own post on Facebook. According to their account, the county did honor the detainer but ICE said it was unable to pick up the person before the order expired and the county had to release the suspect.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections wrote in a blog post that dozens of people DHS listed on its “Worst of the Worst” website were not arrested as DHS described, but were transferred to ICE by the state because they were already in state custody. The Corrections Department has since launched a page dedicated to “correct the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) repeated false claims.”

The “Worst of the Worst” website has some overlap with the department’s social media posts, but it contains a much larger number of people — over 30,000 nationally. It included a Colombian soccer star who was extradited to the U.S., tried in Texas, convicted of drug trafficking and served time in federal prison. The website incorrectly describes him as being arrested in Wisconsin. The soccer player, Jhon Viáfara Mina, recently finished his sentence early and returned to Colombia, according to Spanish newspaper El Diario Vasco.

In some instances, DHS and ICE wrote about incidents where they ran into conflict when carrying out arrests. In those posts, they named the arrestees and posted their photos. But in one case where the incident went to court, the government’s account of the events shifted. After a federal agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis in January, DHS claimed he was lodging a “violent attack on law enforcement.” Assault charges against Sosa-Celis fell apart in court as new evidence surfaced, and the officers involved were put on leave.

Despite the fact that the charges were dropped, DHS’s post profiling Sosa-Celis remains online.

News

Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Published

19 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Bill Clinton to testify before House committee investigating Epstein links

Former president Bill Clinton is scheduled to give deposition Friday to a congressional committee investigating his links to Jeffrey Epstein, one day after Hillary Clinton testified before the committee and called the proceedings “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people”.

During remarks before the House oversight committee, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, insisted on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.

The former Democratic president, however, flew on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s but said he never visited his island.

Clinton, who engaged in an extramarital affair while president and has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women, also appears in a photo from the recently released files, in a hot tub with Epstein and a woman whose identity is redacted.

Clinton has denied the sexual misconduct claims and was not charged with any crimes. He also has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein.

Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. Clinton said he cut ties with him around 2005, before the disgraced financier, who died from suicide in 2019, pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.

The House committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August. They initially refused to testify but agreed after Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt.

The Clintons asked for their depositions to be held publicly, with the former president stating that to do so behind closed doors would amount to a “kangaroo court”.

“Let’s stop the games + do this the right way: in a public hearing,” Clinton said on X earlier this month.

The committee’s chair, James Comer, did not grant their request, and the proceedings will be conducted behind closed doors with video to be released later.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton’s proceedings were briefly halted after representative Lauren Boebert leaked an image of Clinton testifying.

During the full day deposition, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein and did not recall ever meeting him.

Before the deposition, Comer said it would be a long interview and that one with Bill Clinton would be “even longer”.

News

Read Judge Schiltz’s Order

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

CASE 0:26-cv-00107-PJS-DLM

Doc. 12-1 Filed 02/26/26

Page 5 of 17

and to file a status update by 11:00 am on January 20. ECF No. 5. Respondents never provided a bond hearing and did not release Petitioner until January 21, ECF Nos. 10, 12, after failing to file an update, ECF No. 9. Further, Respondents released Petitioner subject to conditions despite the Court’s release order not providing for conditions. ECF Nos. 5, 12–13.

Abdi W. v. Trump, et al., Case No. 26-CV-00208 (KMM/SGE)

On January 21, 2026, the Court ordered Respondents, within 3 days, to either (a) complete Petitioner’s inspection and examination and file a notice confirming completion, or (b) release Petitioner immediately in Minnesota and confirm the date, time, and location of release. ECF No. 7. No notice was ever filed. The Court emailed counsel on January 27, 2026, at 10:39 am. No response was provided.

Adriana M.Y.M. v. David Easterwood, et al., Case No. 26-CV-213 (JWB/JFD)

On January 24, 2026, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and ordered Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release, or anticipated release, within 48 hours. ECF No. 12. Respondent was not released until January 30, and Respondents never disclosed the time of release, instead describing it as “early this morning.” ECF No. 16.

Estefany J.S. v. Bondi, Case No. 26-CV-216 (JWB/SGE)

On January 13, 2026, at 10:59 am, the Court ordered Respondents to file a letter by 4:00 pm confirming Petitioner’s current location. ECF No. 8. After receiving no response, the Court ordered Respondents, at 5:11 pm, to immediately confirm Petitioner’s location and, by noon on January 14, file a memorandum explaining their failure to comply with the initial order. ECF No. 9. Respondents did not file the memorandum, requiring the Court to issue another order. ECF No. 12. On January 15, the Court ordered immediate release in Minnesota and required Respondents to confirm the time, date, and location of release within 48 hours. ECF No. 18. On January 20, having received no confirmation, the Court ordered Respondents to comply immediately. ECF No. 21. Respondents informed the Court that Petitioner was released in Minnesota on January 17, but did not specify the time. ECF No. 22.

5