Raj Persaud is a psychiatrist and author of The Mental Vaccine for COVID-19.
The tragic deaths of Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, alongside one of their dogs in their home in the Santa Fe Summit community northeast of the city has been the source of much controversy.
Debate rages over exactly what happened, particularly perhaps given the odd circumstances.
The official investigation by local authorities in New Mexico concluded finally that Arakawa, 65, died of a rare respiratory disease, perhaps on 11 February, around seven days before her husband, meaning that it was likely he spent a week by himself, disorientated and increasingly malnourished. Zinna, one of their three dogs, was also found dead.
His dementia through Alzheimer’s disease led investigators to propose he may have remained unaware his wife was deceased, and was also evidently unable to summon help. Hackman, 95, was eventually found near the entrance to their home in Santa Fe, Mexico, apparently after suffering a fall.
The initial headlines were that Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa had been found dead at home alongside one of their dogs, and given the local County Sheriff Adan Mendoza indicated there was no immediate indication of foul play, yet as he did not provide a specific cause of death, this lead naturally to speculation including whether this may have been some kind of suicide pact.
A suicide pact occurs when two people decide to take their lives together. This can happen in circumstances not too dissimilar to this tragedy, where one person may, for example, be suffering from a terrible disease or a profound disability which leads them, and their carer, to conclude there isn’t much hope, and that they would prefer not to continue living. Meanwhile the other person in a close relationship also decides they can’t endure without their loved one.
This strong association between deep love and death can be found widespread in popular culture, not least in the famous play Romeo and Juliet. True and deep love means that to have to cope without someone renders one’s life meaningless and therefore death is welcome.
Losing the love of your life then means life has no meaning.
According to press reports, Gene Hackman had apparently suffered from serious dementia for some time. In 2008, he confirmed his retirement and it seemed that emotional disturbance of some kind may have played a role. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was actually a stress test that I took in New York,” Hackman commented to the press about his retirement. “The doctor advised me that my heart wasn’t in the kind of shape that I should be putting it under any stress.”
Suicide pacts account for around 1 percent of all suicides, and so while rare, are not entirely unknown. Because two people are involved in the decision-making such suicides are usually a lot less impulsive than single suicides, consequently, the careful planning involved might explain why a couple might ensure that others didn’t come and routinely check up on them, as might usually be the case. This is done to prevent any possibility that the suicide attempt is not detected by others, and so attempts made to oppose it.
It appears that the celebrity couple were found some time after they died, and therefore the fact no one seemed to miss them, as a part of any kind of social routine, seemed somewhat mysterious, particularly given the fame of the star, unless in their later years, maybe, they really had become quite isolated.
It was this lack of discovery until relatively long after their deaths which also might have prompted some speculation that a suicide pact of some kind was involved.
Press reports are that Emergency Responders discovered Arakawa, 65, on the bathroom floor near spilled pills and a medicine bottle. Her body showed signs of “mummification”, or decomposition, which suggests she had been dead for some time.
However, not just the fact the local authorities have come up with a different account, but also the fact no suicide note was reportedly found, are strong evidential reasons for moving away from the suicide pact theory. In suicide pacts the research confirms that suicide notes are much more likely to be left, compared with individual suicides.
Research has also established that the victims of suicide pacts appear to be significantly less depressed than those who commit a single suicide, suggesting that there is something about the dynamic between two people which means self-destruction can be considered more arising out of their interaction than just being very low.
A good example of this occurs in cases of so-called ‘folie-a-deux’, which refers to a rare but serious psychiatric condition where two people begin to even share the same delusions. Sometimes this is because one party is particularly dominant while the other becomes too submissive.
Again, in a situation where a very famous Oscar-winning actor marries a relatively less well-known piano player, concerns might be raised about this kind of dynamic. Betsy Arakawa was a classical pianist from Hawaii. She was working part-time at the gym that Hackman visited, and their relationship really began following a chance encounter when she refused him entry to the sports club; he had forgotten his membership card.
This couple clearly lived through and survived the Covid-19 cataclysm that beset the world, but there has been some suggestion that the pandemic may have triggered a surge in suicide pacts.
A study entitled, ‘Dyadic Deaths – Repercussion of COVID-19 Pandemic’, published in the Journal of Indian Academy of Forensic Medicine, suggested that the combination of unique stresses presented by the pandemic crisis, may have led to a rise in suicide pacts. One reason for this the pandemic represented multiple strains, not just, the fear of falling ill, but also the economic and social costs meant that maybe couples or two people close to each other might have more likely felt more despairing and hopeless at the same time.
Friends and neighbors told of how Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa had increasingly withdrawn from public life, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, partially in an attempt to protect his immune system. But there are also other theories as to why suicide pacts may be rising in incidence.
In many emerging economies the fast-shifting social changes mean younger generations are more likely to meet others outside of a previously narrow religious or social grouping, fall in love, and want to marry, but the marriage remains opposed by an older generation inflexibly set against mingling outside their more rigidly defined groupings.
This particular theory is advocated in a study entitled, ‘A Viewpoint on the Rising Trend of Couple Suicide in India’, published in the academic journal Omega – Journal of Death and Dying.
It is reported that Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa were extremely close and the sheriff’s office found no evidence that anyone had been caring for Hackman besides Arakawa. “There was no food in his stomach, which means he had not eaten recently,” said Dr Heather Jarrell, New Mexico’s chief medical investigator.
Investigators said that Hackman, 95, was likely unaware that his wife had died. He would have been alone in the house for days, disoriented and too frail to seek help. His pacemaker last recorded his heartbeat on 18 February, which indicates that he died about a week after his wife.
New Mexico state public health veterinarian Erin Phipps said that the dog, Zinna, may have died of dehydration and starvation.
It all seems such a bizarre way for the dog, the wife and the celebrity actor, to finally go, redolent of neglect and isolation. Betsy, it is now understood, died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome on February 11; Hantavirus can be fatal and is spread by rodents’ body fluids and excrement.
Yet in his heyday, Hackman enjoyed a 40-year career in film, before he retired in 2004.
Maybe the real lesson to be drawn from this tragedy is that celebrity, of the massive kind enjoyed by Gene Hackman, also comes with a heavy price. This has also been my clinical experience of dealing with many of the famous.
The cost includes the inevitable need to withdraw from the world so as to escape the various hazards of fame. Being pestered constantly, followed by paparazzi, concerns over personal safety, never knowing who is a genuine friend, constant requests for favors. The list goes on.
It is only after you become famous you realize the relative blessings of anonymity. As a result, celebrities, more often than not, put up walls, ending up as recluses. A strange kind of self-destructive pact appears recurrently enacted, therefore, between the famous and their followers. The audience, in the end, loves them to death.
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