Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa‘s death timeline has been updated following a recent discovery.
Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza explained on “Good Morning America” Monday that the date of Arakawa’s death has changed from Feb. 11 to Feb. 12 after her doctor revealed he received a phone call from the pianist the day after officials initially estimated she died.
“That would indicate to me that she was seeking medical advice or medical help and may have not been feeling well,” he said.
Cloudberry, a healthcare concierge company in New Mexico, confirmed to ABC News that Arakawa had contacted them early Feb. 12 about an “esoteric treatment.”
The office shared that Arakawa did not exhibit signs of “breathing issues or distress,” adding that it “called back twice” when she failed to show up for her appointment “but never heard back.”
Arakawa was last seen in public the previous day while picking up a prescription from a pharmacy.
Police initially believed she died later on Feb. 11, with her cause of death being listed as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare disease spread by rodents.
However, Dr. Josiah Child made headlines Sunday for claiming he had heard from Arakawa after the 65-year-old’s presumed death date.
“Mrs. Hackman didn’t die on Feb. 11 because she called my clinic on Feb. 12,” the physician, who runs Cloudberry, told the Daily Mail.
“She’d called me a couple of weeks before her death to ask about getting an echocardiogram [heart scan] for her husband,” Child added.
Hackman, who was 95 at the time of his death, is believed to have died on Feb. 18, nearly one week after his wife.
The “French Connection” star suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.
A longtime contractor discovered Hackman and Arakawa’s bodies in their New Mexico home on Feb. 26, with the musician showing signs of “mummification.”
On Monday, a Santa Fe judge issued a temporary restraining order on the release of photos of the couple’s bodies ahead of a March 31 hearing on the matter.
Hackman is survived by three children — Christopher, 65, Elizabeth, 62, and Leslie, 58 — who will likely receive the $80 million fortune he left to Arakawa in his 2005 will.
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