Gene Hackman death investigation: new clues raise more questions, experts say cellphones may hold the answers

New evidence released in Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa Hackman's deaths magnified the importance of detailed cellphone records, according to experts.

Preliminary records revealed by the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office on Monday showed activity on Betsy's cellular device one day after she was presumed dead. New Mexico authorities initially believed she died on or around Feb. 11, but new information showed Betsy made multiple calls on Feb. 12. 

Bill Daly, a former FBI investigator, exclusively told Fox News Digital that investigators may have had difficulty extracting information from her phone to do an analysis, but that the phone "would tell them not only just when the last calls were made, what text messages were there, but also show movement." 

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"The analytics within the cellphone could maybe determine even further if there was any slight movement," Daly said. "That's been something that's been used in several investigations, including some murder cases where they were able to kind of determine the more specific time of death is when the phones stop moving in the deceased."

Daly noted that the cellular analytics would also determine specifically when the phone stopped moving. 

"That would be, probably, if it was on that person, a more definitive timeframe which they passed away," he said. "I think probably what we're seeing here is either it took a while to get into the phones and get some of those analytics analyzed, and it also could be the fact that the pathologist who are working with deceased people for several weeks and put the time of death on the 11th of February, whereas now they are making a call on at least the morning of the 12th." 

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Authorities confirmed Monday that Betsy's phone was "utilized on the morning of February 12 to call a medical center in Santa Fe, Cloudberry Health." 

"The analytics within the cellphone could maybe determine even further if there was any slight movement."

— Bill Daly

"A total of three calls were made that morning, all to the medical center. One incoming call was made to Mrs. Hackman from the same medical center that afternoon," the department confirmed to Fox News Digital. "That appeared as a missed call on Mrs. Hackman’s cell phone."

Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor, exclusively told Fox News Digital that it's a "minor thing" sheriffs provided Feb. 11 as the assumed date of death for Betsy.    

"Among the first things they likely did was search for her phone activity and see she made a call that day," Mauro said. "If they had not done that by the time they issued a date of death, it does suggest a little investigatory slippage."

Mauro suggested that investigators may have felt pressured to get information out to the public quickly due to the nature of the high-profile case.

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"Very often, there’s a lot of pressure and moving parts," Mauro said. "Somebody could have just gotten a date slightly wrong."

"If they had not done that by the time they issued a date of death, it does suggest a little investigatory slippage."

— Paul Mauro

He added, "I’m a little surprised that the police did not have that data point before they decided to give their final conclusions. But perhaps what we have been hearing are not their final conclusions."

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Dr. Josiah Child, a physician who oversees Cloudberry Health, said the late classical pianist did not initially express symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

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"[Betsy] had actually made an appointment to have an initial visit with one of our doctors on the 12th," Dr. Child said. "She called on the 10th saying that her husband was ill or wanted to take care of her husband. She wanted to cancel that appointment. 

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"She called back on the 12th and was [looking for] advice. She said, ‘I have some congestion and I just want some advice. What can I do for it?’ She had no shortness of breath or chest pain or fever or anything like that. Our receptionist spoke to the doctor and the doctor said, 'Well, I've never met her. We have to have an initial appointment.'"

The practice scheduled Betsy for a 1 p.m. appointment on Feb. 12 after she called that morning, but she never showed up. The practice then called Betsy, but there was no answer. 

"If we had known the patient and known that they had a medical condition or something, then if we try and call them and they didn't call back, we would be more aggressive about finding out what's going on," said Dr. Child. "But in this case, I think, since the doctor had never seen the patient, it was unclear whether maybe she found another doctor or went somewhere else."

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Dr. Child said it sounded like Betsy was "starting to feel ill" but was not fully aware of how sick she was actually becoming. 

"I don't know whether it was because she was focusing on her husband or because it was a rapidly progressive disease, or she was just one of those people that didn't really feel a lot of discomfort. No one will ever know," he said. "But for some reason she didn't recognize that she was becoming very ill with the second phase of Hantavirus, which invades the lungs."

"No one will ever know, but for some reason she didn't recognize that she was becoming very ill with the second phase of Hantavirus, which invades the lungs."

— Dr. Josiah Child

Betsy died due to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is transmitted from animals to humans and is commonly found in rodents, the New Mexico Department of Health confirmed.

Hantavirus is characterized by "flu-like symptoms consisting of fever, muscle aches, cough, sometimes vomiting and diarrhea that can progress to shortness of breath and cardiac or heart failure and lung failure," Chief Medical Investigator Dr. Heather Jarrell explained during the news conference.

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