Shortly after the legendary actor, 95, and his wife, 64, along with one of their three dogs, were found dead in their Sante Fe, N.M., home, a 911 call was released revealing new details about how their bodies were discovered on Feb. 26 by two maintenance workers.
“I think we just found two or one deceased person inside the house,” one of the workers, who identified himself as the “subdivision’s caretaker,” said on the call obtained by NBC News Feb. 27. “There’s no one here. I’m going to wait for you at the gate. Please send somebody.”
However, the caller had trouble relaying where officials should be sent, insisting there was “no address” on the property.
“There’s no address here, so I have to meet down there,” he continued. “Then once the police [or] whoever [are] down at the gate house, I’ll bring them up here.”
Inside Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa’s life in Santa Fe
And when asked to determine if Hackman and Arakawa were breathing, the caretaker repeatedly stated that he had “no idea.”
“I’m not inside the house,” he explained. “It’s closed. It’s locked. I can’t go in, but I see them laying—she’s laying down from the window.”
The caretaker was also certain that the bodies were motionless, at one point telling the 911 operator, “Dude, they’re not moving. Just send somebody out here really quick.”
Moments later, the call temporarily dropped, with the operator saying, “I can barely understand you. You’re coming in and out.”
But ultimately, the caretaker was able to confirm where officers should meet him.
“I don’t know the gate number, but I can bring them up to the house,” the caller said toward the end of the conversation before adding, “I’m going to meet the unit, thank you for your help.”
Shortly after the caretaker’s 911 call, Arakawa and Hackman — who married in 1991 — were found dead by responding officers in separate rooms of their New Mexico residence. Authorities said they believe the couple — whose bodies showed signs of “body decomposition,” “bloating” and “mumification,” according to an affidavit obtained by NBC News — had been deceased for “at least a day.”
Police say the couple, who married in 1991, were found with their dog after a neighbor called police to do a welfare check.
Since news of their passing, the Sante Fe Sheriff’s Office said officials have deemed the circumstances around the tragedy as “suspicious” and are opening a “thorough search and investigation.” To try to determine cause of death, the local medical examiner requested carbon monoxide and toxicology tests, which are pending. There was no sign of external trauma, meaning physical injury caused by an outside agent, according to the examiner.
In the wake of the tragedy, several of Hackman’s friends, colleagues and admirers have shared tributes in honor of his legacy.
“Gene Hackman [was] a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity,” Francis Ford Coppola — who directed the actor in 1974’s “The Conversation” — wrote on Instagram Feb. 27. “I mourn his loss, and celebrate his existence and contribution.”
Echoing that sentiment, Tom Hanks added in his own Instagram post, “There has never been a ‘Gene Hackman Type.’ There has only been Gene Hackman.”
