Months before Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa’s tragic deaths, the couple had had two strange interactions with a man, according to Arakawa’s hairstylist.
Fox News Digital obtained and released bodycam footage detailing how “frazzled” Arakawa was by a man following her on two separate occasions in December 2024. She told her hairstylist that she had never seen the man before.
The hairstylist opened up
“She mentioned to me that there was a man that had parked outside of their gate and followed them, on two separate occasions,” the hairstylist, Christopher, told law enforcement about what Arakawa told him at the time.
The first incident
“One occasion is when they went to White Rock. They went and had lunch there and the guy followed them from parked [outside of their gated community], followed them all the way to White Rock,” Christopher explained.
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“She said, ‘Christopher, I’m surprised that security didn’t [know] how he got there… because when we left, I noticed that this car had followed us from the residence to White Rock,’” he continued.
Could be a fan, could be more
Arakawa told Christopher that the man had “pulled out a folder of photos of her husband and wanted him to sign them.”
However, Christopher begged to differ as he told police: “We were sitting here and I said, ‘That’s so weird because Santa Fe’s not a place of paparazzi and stuff.”
The second occasion made things creepier
Things took a south turn as the man followed them to a different location. He offered the couple a bottle of wine, but they refused the gift.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh, Betsy, that’s crazy. You should not have approached this person. This makes me nervous,’” Christopher continued. “He knew what [they] drove. That’s the scary part.”
A lawyer filed a petition
the Hackmans’ estate is represented by Julia Peters who filed a petition in the state District Court in Santa Fe in an attempt to stop the medical investigator and the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office from releasing footage related to the deceased couple and their residence.
the Hackman estate won a temporary restraining order
The temporary restraining order was against the release of records regarding the Hackmans’ deaths. The order stated:
“Office of the Medical Investigator and the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, including each entities’ agents, assigns, and employees are hereby temporarily restrained from disclosing through IPRA or other means, any and all photographs or videos containing images of the following: the body of Gene Hackman, the body of Betsy Arakawa-Hackman, the interior of Mr. and Mrs. Hackman’s residence.”
They can’t even disclose autopsy or death reports
The Office of the Medical Investigator was temporarily restrained from revealing the couple’s autopsy and/or death reports, or anything related to it as per the order.
A hearing date has been set for March 31. Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, according to New Mexico officials. Hackman, on the other hand, died due to hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, in addition to Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributing factor.
