Betsy Arakawa made several calls to a medical clinic on Feb. 12, the day after the authorities initially believed that she died.
The authorities in New Mexico have recovered evidence that Betsy Arakawa, the wife of the actor Gene Hackman, died at least one day later than they had previously estimated.
The New Mexico authorities initially believed that Ms. Arakawa had likely died of a rare viral infection on Feb. 11, because that was when she was last seen publicly and stopped returning email correspondence.
But after analyzing her cellphone, investigators learned that Ms. Arakawa had made three phone calls on the morning of Feb. 12, Denise Womack-Avila, a spokeswoman for the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, said on Monday. She said that Ms. Arakawa had made the calls to a concierge medical service, Cloudberry Health.
Dr. Josiah Child, the lead physician there, said in an interview that the clinic called Ms. Arakawa back that morning and scheduled an appointment for that afternoon. He said she had reported feeling congested but that there were no signs of respiratory distress. Ms. Arakawa did not show up for her appointment that afternoon, Dr. Child said.
“I suspect that she was starting to feel ill and that’s why she reached out to us,” he said.
Ms. Arakawa and Mr. Hackman were both found dead in their secluded home outside of Santa Fe late last month. The state medical examiner concluded that Ms. Arakawa, 65, died from the effects of hantavirus, which is contracted through exposure to excrement from rodents. The virus can cause flulike symptoms before progressing to shortness of breath, as well as cardiac and lung failure.
They said that Mr. Hackman, who had Alzheimer’s, spent another week in the house with her body and died Feb. 18 of heart disease.
