What Forensic Investigation Needed for Hackman Death

Failure to rule out carbon monoxide poisoning in the Hackman death could create a public health crisis. Carbon monoxide leaves forensic traces that are determinable.

By Attorney Gordon Johnson

The news reports are still giving conflicting theories as to whether carbon monoxide poisoning could be at fault in the Gene Hackman and his wife’s mysterious deaths in New Mexico. If it is carbon monoxide poisoning, they will eventually figure it out, but there is no reason this can’t be figured out promptly.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning can be Determined by Autopsy

First, COHb levels can be determined by autopsy.  While blood tests may take a slight bit longer to test than the autopsy itself, this should be done quickly, not with extensive delays. Delay in finishing autopsy results can cost lives, as it did in the Boone Best Western poisoning case, where failure to promptly complete and share autopsy results resulted in another fatality in the same hotel room. Out of that disaster, the Jenkins Foundation was formed by the daughter of Daryl and Shirley Jenkins, Kris Haushildt, the first to die in that hotel room in Boone. https://thejenkinsfoundation.com/

Forensic Investigation Must Treat Scene as a Public Health Hazard

Kris Haushildt has lived through what the Hackman family members are going through right now. She has a lot to say about what should be done right now.

Said Haushildt to us today:

That home is potentially an unaddressed public health hazard. There should be a simultaneous scene investigation going on while they await autopsy/toxicology results. There is no mention of CO detection devices onsite.

What about CO alarms? Did the fire department or police leave CO alarms in the residence to warn anyone who enters the home (like family members) in case the source is still active in the home (like a water heater or furnace that only comes on intermittently)?

In my parents case, the police and ME insisted on waiting for the toxicology results because neither of my parents displayed the (erroneously) tell/tale sign of having cherry red skin. The ME can’t finalize the autopsy report until the toxicology results are done (standard procedure).

I have since learned that they can obviously do a COHb test on Hackmans independent of the toxicology. I had no idea that was an option when my parents died. I asked the ME if there was any way to test them for CO right away and he told me no. 

In our conversation, Kris discussed a case from years ago where a family flew home to take care of their parents funeral after a CO poisoning and then were poisoned in the same home.

“If CO suspected, it should be throughly/adequately ruled out by EXPERTS in fuel gas/combustion analysis.” 

Combustion Analyzer on Every Appliance

Before investigators left that home on the day the bodies were discovered, there should have been a combustion analysis done on every fuel burning appliance there. To do requires a combustion analyzer, a tool every qualified HVAC company should carry with them.

Did anyone check to see if the cars in garage were out of gas?

Weather Investigation

As we don’t know yet when the poisoning happened, a quick examination of the weather over the previous days should be done. In the week before the bodies discovered, the Santa Fe weather had dropped below 20 degrees F.

Perhaps we will learn more today at the news conference. Until then, the scene must be treated as a carbon monoxide scene. As Kris said: “There are no standards for CO investigations.” There should be.