Gene Hackman’s daughter makes unusual suggestion for couple’s burial

Gene Hackman’s daughter feels their dog should be buried with his wife.

The actor’s daughter Elizabeth, 61, can be heard making the suggestion in a bodycam footage from the day after the bodies were recovered.

The February 27 footage shows an officer calling Elizabeth from inside a police vehicle to ask what to do with the body of the deceased dog—a kelpie mix Zinna who was recovered from the same bathroom Betsy was found dead.

Elizabeth first asked the officer if cremation was an option. When the animal control officer confirmed the possibility, she gave further instructions for the burial.

“I’m thinking cremate the dog and bury it with Betsy,” she was heard saying, per People Magazine.

“And,” she later requested, “if the dog is wearing a collar, could you save that for me?”

Another bodycam video recorded a dog trainer outside the couple’s residence on February 26, recalling how the couple was “dogs nuts.”

“You can see, there’s toys everywhere around their property,” the owner of a local pet daycare and training facility, Santa Fe Tails, told the authorities in the footage. “They loved their dogs.”

The couple also had two German Shepards, Bear and Nikita, who were found alive and healthy in the same apartment the bodies were recovered from.

The causes of Gene and Betsy’s deaths were revealed in March, weeks after they were found dead. The pianist died from hantavirus, a flu-like virus linked to rodent droppings, while her actor husband died a week later from a combination of severe heart disease, high blood pressure, and advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

Meanwhile, Zinna likely died of dehydration and starvation, Santa Fe County animal control previously revealed.