A forensic expert has given his verdict on what caused the deaths of Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa. The couple, 95 and 65, were found dead at their Santa Fe home this week, and their deaths have remained a mystery as the Santa Fe authorities opened an investigation.

Forensic pathologist Dr Michael Baden appeared on Fox News to share his verdict, as he said Hackman’s pacemaker could be a huge clue.The pacemaker last recorded an event on February 17, which indicated Hackman could be lying dead in his home for up to ten days before being discovered.Baden said: “That event would have been a cardiac arrest caused by an abnormal pulse rate,” he said. “The pacemaker keeps track of the pulse, and when it gets down too low, it discharges. And that’s all in the record.”

“So the autopsy showed he didn’t have any injury. There was no carbon monoxide. And he had — the most common cause of death in this country — severe heart disease, coronary artery disease and high blood pressure perhaps, from what’s been released. So that would cause him, having cardiac arrest in the mudroom, to collapse right there.”

Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa’s cause of deaths are yet to be confirmed (Image: Getty)

Gene and his wife may have been lying dead in their homes for ten days (Image: Getty)

He also speculated that Arakawa may have died while trying to help her husband. “His wife was found in the bathroom,” Baden said. “They haven’t released the information about her findings, except that she did not have carbon monoxide in her, and that what appears to be from the scene and from what’s been said is that she found her husband in the mudroom.”

Baden continued that Arakawa may have gone to the bathroom to get Hackman’s blood pressure medication before falling to the floor and dropping the pills and taking the space heater down with her, based on the findings from the search warrant affidavit.

He continued: “She may have struck her head on the way down and had some internal injury to the brain that doesn’t show up on the outside or bleeding in the inside of the brain.

“Or that she may also, at 65, had severe heart disease and excitement can cause a trigger to the cardiac rhythm causing death under those circumstances. I think the first, that striking her head would be more common.”

Baden then shared his thoughts on what may have happened to their late dog, who was found in the bedroom closet 10-15 feet from Arakawa’s body.

He added: “What was perplexing to me initially with the release was the death of a dog also, which I thought was free in the house,” Baden said. “And that’s why I think that the carbon monoxide [theory] was a very good thought with them breathing in the same air. But it turns out from what they say, that the dog was constrained in his cage or kennel and would have died from just dehydration and lack of water during the nine-day period that he