Gene Hackman might have been dead for more than a week before he was found in his home.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza held a press conference on Friday afternoon that revealed new information about the puzzling death of the French Connection actor, who was found dead in his New Mexico home Wednesday night alongside his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and one of their dogs.

“An initial interrogation was conducted of Mr. Hackman’s pacemaker,” Mendoza said. “This revealed that his last event was recorded on Feb. 17, 2025. I was advised that a more thorough investigation will be completed.”

Based on that information, Mendoza said that it would be “a very good assumption” that Feb. 17 “was his last day of life.” That means that the actor was likely dead for as many as nine days before he was discovered on Feb. 26.

An affidavit for a search warrant from a Santa Fe detective, which was reviewed by Entertainment Weekly, stated that Hackman was found in the mud room of his secluded home with a cane and a pair of sunglasses nearby. The investigating officer believed that Hackman may have “suddenly fallen.”

Before the actor’s body was discovered, the responding officers found Arakawa’s body in the bathroom next to scattered pills, a space heater, and one of the couple’s dogs, which was also deceased. According to a search warrant obtained by PEOPLE, the pills were Tylenol, a thyroid medication, and diltiazem, which is used to treat high blood pressure and chest pain.

At the press conference, Mendoza said that the autopsies found “no apparent signs of foul play” nor “external trauma” to either Hackman or Arakawa. He noted that the manner and cause of death have both not been determined for either individual, and that both the full autopsy and toxicology reports could take up to three months to complete.

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The affidavit noted that two employees from a maintenance service, Hoam Company, initially discovered the bodies on Wednesday. The maintenance workers said they’d last contacted Hackman and Arakawa about two weeks prior to finding them, and that they “rarely saw the owners” of the house during their work, which was usually coordinated over the phone.

Mendoza emphasized that the deceased couple’s emphasis on privacy made the investigation difficult, and said that investigators obtained cell phones and a 2025 daily planner from the house. “One of the challenges is trying to determine that timeline [of last contact],” he said at the press conference. “I think that the event of the pacemaker gives us an idea, but we’re going to sift through the cell phone records, we’re going to go through the planner, we’re contacting maintenance workers, family members, security.”

The timeline of events remains so blurry that investigators still don’t know whether Hackman or Arakawa died first at this point, Mendoza said.