Authorities searching for answers after Gene Hackman and his wife mysteriously found dead
Actor Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa pose for a portrait in 1986 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
(LOS ANGELES) — Authorities are searching for answers into the death of actor Gene Hackman, 95, who along with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65, were mysteriously found dead alongside a dog in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home on Wednesday.
The couple was found on Wednesday during a welfare check with no obvious signs of how they died, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.
However, their deaths were “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation” due to all of the “circumstances surrounding” the scene, according to the search warrant affidavit.
There was no external trauma to either of them which led officials to conduct carbon monoxide and toxicology with the official results pending, the sheriff’s office said.
Hackman was discovered on the floor in the mud room, according to the search warrant. It appeared he fell suddenly, and he and his wife “showed obvious signs of death,” the document said.
Arakawa was found lying on her side on the floor in a bathroom, with a space heater near her body, according to the search warrant, and her body showed signs of decomposition due to some mummification to her hands and feet.
On the counter near Arakawa was an opened prescription bottle, with pills scattered, according to the search warrant.
A German shepherd was found dead about 10 to 15 feet from Arakawa, the document said. That dog was in a crate or a kennel, according to Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza.
The Santa Fe City Fire Department found no signs of a possible carbon monoxide leak or poisoning, the document said. But, if there was carbon monoxide at the scene, it could have vented out of the home through the open front door before responders arrived.
New Mexico Gas Company also responded, “As of now, there are no signs or evidence indicating there were any problems associated to the pipes in and around the residence,” the document said.
Two maintenance workers said they hadn’t heard from Hackman and Arakawa in about two weeks, the document said.
A maintenance worker who initially responded to the home found the front door open but there were no signs of forced entry or that anything had been stolen, the document said.
There was no indication of a crime and “there could be a multitude of reasons why the door was open,” the sheriff told reporters Thursday.
There was “no obvious sign or indication of foul play,” but authorities “haven’t ruled that out yet,” the sheriff said.
Investigators are “keeping everything on the table,” he added.
ABC News’ Kevin Shalvey, Erica Morris and Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.
Fort Knox, Kentucky: Exterior view of the United States Bullion Depository at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. (Bettmann via Getty Images)
(FORT KNOX, KY) — President Donald Trump is casting doubt — without providing evidence — over whether much of the nation’s store of gold still exists at the famous United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, raising questions about whether somebody “stole” it.
What’s more, he’s said he wants to go to Fort Knox to see for himself.
The ultra-secure facility holds approximately 147.3 million ounces of gold, according to the U.S. Mint.
In raising questions, Trump is echoing Elon Musk, who has repeatedly questioned the whereabouts of the gold.
Their expressed skepticism comes despite Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying that there is an audit every year and that “all the gold is present and accounted for.”
It’s also despite Trump’s treasury secretary in his first term, Steven Mnuchin, personally visiting the reserves and confirming that the gold was there.
Still, both Musk and Trump continue to raise questions without evidence.
In an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast released Friday — one of Musk’s first comprehensive interviews since becoming a “special government employee” — Musk repeated this suspicion.
“A live tour of Fort Knox would be awesome … is the gold there or not? They say it is — is it real? Or did somebody spray paint some lead?” he asked.
In fact, these concerns appear to be brought to Musk’s attention recently. On Feb. 15, he reacted to an X post that asked him to look into the gold supply, in which he responded, “Surely it’s reviewed at least every year?”
Fort Knox is a military base that has stored U.S. gold since 1937, according to the U.S. Army’s website.
What do Trump and Musk believe?
Last week, Trump brought up the gold supply after being asked about Musk’s most recent DOGE efforts.
“We have found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud so far. And we’ve just started. We’re actually going to Fort Knox to see if the gold is there, because maybe somebody stole the gold. Tons of gold,” Trump said.
He raised it again at his recent meeting with the nation’s governors at the White House on Feb. 21, saying that they plan to “open the doors to Fort Knox.”
“You grew up hearing about Fort Knox. You can’t get in. You can’t even see it. Nobody sees it. You go there and the place is dry,” Trump said.
Trump also referred to the site as the “fabled Fort Knox” while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One last week.
Musk — who has been tasked to eliminate government waste and fraud — has repeatedly expressed suspicion about the gold bars.
“This gold is the property of the American people. I sure hope it’s still there!” he wrote on X last month. He has also repeatedly touted that the gold could have been stolen, asking on X, “who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?”
Musk floated the idea of live-streaming a walkthrough of Fort Knox, responding to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ coverage of his comments by suggesting he’d like to film inside the vaults.
He repeated this idea during the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, in addition to saying, “part of this is also, you know, let’s have some fun.”
During Musk’s podcast appearance with Joe Rogan on Friday, Rogan asked the billionaire to think about his DOGE findings in relation to the gold.
“Think about all the other stuff that you pointed out. All the checks that just go out, the NGO payments, the social security people … now apply that to the gold,” Rogan said, to which Musk replied, “absolutely.”
Not all members of Trump’s administration share the same doubts.
“I think the gold is probably there. It’s probably almost certainly there,” David Sacks, Trump’s crypto czar, told Fox News last week, though he still agreed with the president’s calls to investigate the matter.
“Nobody thinks this is a crazy idea to go check because we don’t know,” Sacks added, arguing that “we cannot fully trust that our gold is still in Fort Knox” because of the “corruption” in Washington.
When was the gold last seen?
According to the U.S. Mint, “the only gold removed has been very small quantities used to test the purity of gold during regularly scheduled audits,” and no other gold has been transferred to or from the depository “for many years.”
The building was constructed using 16,000 cubic feet of granite, 4,200 cubic yards of concrete, 750 tons of reinforcing steel, and 670 tons of structural steel, the U.S. Mint says.
The gold is located at Fort Knox because it is “far from either coast, adjacent to a military installation for added security and close to a rail head for transportation,” according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Mint.
The depository has a strict no-visitors policy, as Trump alluded to, and even the president is restricted from accessing the vault. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only non-authorized person to obtain access.
However, it first opened it in 1974 for journalists and a congressional delegation to view the reserves after rumors swirled surrounding the gold’s whereabouts.
“We’ve never done this before and we’ll probably never do it again,” then-Director of the U.S. Mint Mary Brooks said after displaying the gold supply, according to a New York Times report following the visit.
The second viewing came over 40 years later in 2017 during Trump’s first administration. Then-Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were members of a delegation invited to view the gold.
“The gold was there when I visited it,” Mnuchin said in Feb., adding that he’s “sure” nobody’s moved it and emphasizing the “serious security protocols in place.”
Former Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin — who was present during this visit — also attested to the gold being at Fort Knox.
“The reality is, there is an extraordinary amount of gold that is in there,” Bevin told Fox News Business last week. He added that he agrees in transparency and that “the people’s wealth should be known and accounted for, no question.”
“Is it possible that through the years things could be taken? It is,” he admitted, before arguing that the building “is so ridiculously secure that it is not possible to sneak anything out of there.”
Bevin also floated the possibility that Musk, as the world’s richest man, may want to see what his riches look like “in physical form.”
“It is almost equivalent to how much his net worth is,” Bevin said, admitting that he would want to see the gold, too, if he were Musk.
There are “restrictions on sharing any information related to the facility’s security,” according to documents detailing the 2017 visit’s schedule and security measures published by CNN.
“Access to the USBD is limited, as the facility exists solely for the storage of gold,” the document said. “To prevent compromise of security, photographs will be subject to review by the U.S. Mint Police.”
“The Treasury Secretary allows the visit when rumors persist that all the gold had been removed from the vaults,” the U.S. Mint said in a statement.
After affirming that “all” of the gold was present, Bessent said last month, “any senator, they call the Treasury, we’re happy to arrange a visit. They can do an inspection.”
According to the Treasury’s monthly status report tracking gold owned by the Treasury, 147.3 million ounces of gold were recorded in Fort Knox as of Jan. 31, 2025.
Fort Knox has also been utilized to temporarily store valuable historical items, such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution during World War II, as well as the Magna Carta.
The urgency to locate the gold comes despite the U.S. dollar no longer being linked to the value of gold. In 1971, Roosevelt ended the gold standard and switched to a fiat money system.
However, the traditional belief that the U.S. dollar and gold have an inverse relationship still prevails. When the dollar weakens — especially during times of inflation — the value of gold is believed to increase.
Conspiracy theories surrounding Fort Knox
Rumors of the gold being missing or stolen have been a decades-long conspiracy theory.
In 1971, Peter Beter, a lawyer and financial adviser to former President John F. Kennedy, alleged that British spies informed him that the gold in Fort Knox was secretly removed, the Washington Post reported.
Beter’s book, The Conspiracy Against the Dollar, continued to make such allegations that gold was missing. The 1974 visit, inviting journalists and congressmen to view the vault, followed soon after.
The 1964 James Bond film, “Goldfinger,” also centers around a gold smuggler who is being investigated for scheming a break in of Fort Knox in an attempt to contaminate its gold supply.
In 2010, then-Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was outspoken in his suspicions regarding the gold’s whereabouts. He introduced the “Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2011” which called for a full audit of U.S. gold reserves.
When asked during an interview last month if he thinks the U.S. government has all the gold it claims to have, Paul said “no, I don’t. But I don’t have evidence to prove it.”
“Even if they showed us the gold, maybe the gold has been loaned out,” Paul said, citing ways that the government can “deceive the people.”
Musk has expressed support for Paul, even throwing his support behind calls for the former congressman to audit the gold.
Last month, in response to X posts asking Paul to audit the Federal Reserve, Musk responded “good idea” and “this will be great.”
Ron Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, weighed in with a similar position to his father. Responding to Musk’s tweet asking whether the Fort Knox gold supply is reviewed every year, Rand Paul responded, “Nope. Let’s do it.”
On Feb. 21, Rand Paul penned a letter to Bessent requesting to audit the gold reserves at Fort Knox.
Appearing on “Fox and Friends” last month, Rand Paul acknowledged that the treasury secretary attested that the gold was there but emphasized the need for it to be audited, arguing “the more transparency, the better.”
Musk appears to not mind that his claims are perceived to be tied to conspiracy theories.
During The Joe Rogan Experience, the podcast episode opened with Rogan and Musk attempting to ask Musk’s Grok AI machine if all the gold is still in Fort Knox. While Grok AI did not provide an answer, she asked if Musk was a “conspiracy theorist” to which the two shared bouts of laughter over.
“These conspiracy theories don’t really spread per se on their own, beliefs in these conspiracy theories are instead a product of politicians and media elites sharing these ideas to trusting audiences who are already disposed toward believing them,” Peter Uscinski, professor at University of Miami that specializes in conspiracy theories, told ABC News.
“Trump and his allies have shared numerous conspiracy theories over the past eight years; there is nothing new about this, and it ties in closely with Trump and Musk setting themselves up as people who are uncovering fraud in the government,” Uscinski added.
ABC News’ Will Steakin contributed to this report.
(PALM COAST, FL) — A toddler found wandering in the middle of a Florida street with a heavily soiled diaper ended up leading police to a home with extremely hazardous living conditions with the father passed out intoxicated in his bed, police say.
The incident occurred on Sunday when the Flagler County Sheriff’s Department in Florida responded to multiple emergency reports concerning a 2-year-old child “walking in the middle of the street in pajamas with a heavily soiled diaper,” according to a statement from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday.
Prior to the incident, witnesses say that they observed a child in the front yard of a nearby home and that they took the child to the residence where they found the child’s father, 44-year-old Ross Judy of Palm Coast, “passed out in his bed intoxicated,” police said.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Department responded to the home and, during their investigation, they found “dangerous tools and garbage in the interior and exterior of the home along with animal feces, filth, and an emaciated dog with an ear that was almost rotted off and fur missing from its body,” authorities said.
“The residence was in deplorable living conditions with several alcoholic beverage containers, bugs swimming in toilet water, and a sink piled high with several inches of cigarette ash to the point the sink was no longer visible,” according to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Department. “Pill bottles were scattered throughout a spare room and on top of living room shelves along with exposed razors and hypodermic needles, which were all accessible to the child.”
“No child should be living in deplorable conditions with an adult who obviously doesn’t care about their wellbeing,” said Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly in a written statement following the incident. “The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has no tolerance for anyone endangering children or animals. I am thankful to our residents who ‘saw something and said something’ so that our deputies could intervene.”
Judy was arrested and charged with child neglect without great bodily harm and abandon animal to die, sick, diseased or Infirm.
The suspect was taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility and is currently being held on a $4,000 bond, authorities said.
The Florida Department of Children and Families and Palm Coast Animal Control are also investigating this incident, and their investigation is currently ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — Two storms are targeting the country, with one bringing heavy rain to the East Coast and blizzard conditions to the Midwest, and the second dropping snow and rain in the West.
East Coast storm
The East Coast storm first tore through the South, with at least 10 tornadoes reported from Oklahoma to Florida.
The storm is now barreling up the coast, moving through Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday morning.
Later in the morning and into the afternoon, a squall line with possible tornadoes will target the area from Charleston, South Carolina, to Raleigh, North Carolina, to Virginia Beach, Virginia.
A tornado watch is in effect in the Carolinas, where damaging winds could reach 70 mph.
In the early afternoon, severe thunderstorms could hit Washington, D.C., bringing heavy rain and damaging winds.
The storm will reach Philadelphia by mid-afternoon, and then bring heavy rain and gusty winds to the New York City area during the evening rush hour.
New York City could see up to 1 inch of rain and localized flooding, the city’s emergency management department warned.
“Plan ahead if you’re in an area prone to flooding,” the department said on social media. “If traveling, take extra care and time.”
In the Midwest and the Great Lakes, the same storm system is bringing a blizzard warning from Iowa to Michigan. A combination of heavy snow and wind gusts over 50 mph will create dangerous whiteout conditions on the roads.
Parts of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan could see 1 to 2 feet of snow by the afternoon.
Up to 1 foot of snow fell just south of Minneapolis, while the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport recorded more than 7 inches, making it the biggest snowstorm of the winter season.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz declared a peacetime emergency and authorized the state’s National Guard to give support.
“Give plows room to work,” the Minnesota State Patrol said. “Slow down, buckle up and put distractions away.”
West Coast storm
Meanwhile, a second storm is hitting 11 states in the West, from California to South Dakota, from Wednesday through Friday.
One to 3 feet of snow is possible from California to the Rocky Mountains.
Rain is expected in Southern California, including Los Angeles. There’s not a major threat for flash flooding but there could be debris flow in wildfire burn scar areas.