In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, longtime friends and neighbors of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, Daniel and Barbara Lenihan, shared the details of their family’s last conversation with the couple, who were found dead in their home earlier this week alongside one of their dogs.
The Lenihans, who live 10 minutes from the New Mexico home where Hackman and Arakawa were found on Feb. 26, first met the couple, whom Daniel described as “just very kind people” in 1992, and developed a close friendship over the years.
They revealed to PEOPLE that the last time their family had heard from the couple was when their son Brendan spoke to Betsy “two to three weeks ago” about the upcoming birth of his second child.
According to Barbara, Brendan had told Betsy that he was expecting a son, and she was “very excited” about the news. She added, “It wasn’t a real long message, but then Brendan was hoping to hear back again soon.”
Barbara described Hackman as a “Renaissance man” and Arakawa as sharp and very witty, while Daniel described his friendship with Hackman as “intense.”
He told PEOPLE, “Gene’s a fellow that when he had an idea come up about something that we were going to write or do, or something he just wanted to do, you could tell from his voice that he had such an idea and he would just lay it out like it’s something that God Almighty had demanded be done.”
The Lenihans’ son, Aaron, told the magazine that he and his brother Brendan “really looked up to Gene,” sharing that the two-time Academy Award-winning actor taught the pair how to paint: “He was always extremely kind to us, but everyone else I ever saw him interact with, I think he was very honest, had a lot of integrity. He was an incredible artist. He taught my brother and I to paint some, and the two of them were always so thoughtful.”
Hackman and Arakawa were found in their Santa Fe home on Feb. 26 after a maintenance worker called in a wellness check. Authorities found Hackman’s body in a state of decay in a mud room while the bodies of Arakawa and one of their dogs were found in a bathroom; the couple’s two other dogs were found alive elsewhere on the property.
The maintenance workers who alerted authorities stated that they had last had contact with the couple two weeks before; according to a deputy, they could have been dead for several days or even a couple of weeks.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department did not immediately detect signs of foul play, but the investigation is ongoing.
