The running joke among friends of two-time Academy Award-winning actor Gene Hackman, renowned for his rugged roles as hard-scrabble cops and villainous sheriffs, was that they knew who really wore the pants in his house – his devoted, oddly overprotective, wife, Betsy. Even at 95 years old, 6ft 2in Hackman towered over petite 5ft 3in Betsy Arakawa, 65, a classically trained pianist and avowed dog-lover. 'She was little. If he fell, she would have a hard time lifting him,' Hackman's golf buddy, business partner and friend of more than two decades, Tom Allin, 75, exclusively tells the Daily Mail. But, of course, appearances can be deceiving and the best of intentions can go awry. Betsy was so controlling of her ailing husband that she kept him isolated, says Allin, even though the Hackman's $80 million fortune meant they could have afforded 24-hour live-in care. 'I don't think she allowed anybody in the house, especially in the last six months,' Allin reveals. In hindsight, hired help would have been advisable, considering Hackman suffered from advanced Alzheimer's disease and struggled to care for himself. But, according to Allin, Betsy was determined to 'do everything herself.' And, perhaps, that had tragic consequences. 'She was going to do everything to protect him until he passed away,' Allin adds. 'But she didn't expect to pass away first.' Allin's disconcerting theory is that Betsy may have inadvertently loved her dear husband to death – for after she passed, he didn't stand a chance at survival. The Hackmans' mummified remains were first discovered by a maintenance worker on February 26. When police arrived at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, they found Betsy dead in a bathroom. She had apparently collapsed. Pills were found strewn across the floor. One of the couple's three dogs was locked inside a crate nearby – also dead. Hackman was found deceased, sprawled out on the floor of a mudroom, just 20 feet from his wife. Autopsies showed that Betsy died first, on February 11, of the rare rodent-borne virus Hantavirus, while Hackman's pacemaker stopped on February 18. His cause of death was given as heart failure with severe Alzheimer's as a contributing factor. His stomach was empty, suggesting he hadn't eaten in a week. Allin, who co-owned a local restaurant with Hackman, wondered to the Mail, 'if Betsy's absolute goal of privacy ended up not being helpful at all.' His conjecture is indeed backed up by another close Hackman friend, who spoke to the Mail on condition of anonymity, and says that the couple's $3.5 million ranch home had long been 'a mess.' 'The inside of the house was shocking,' the source says. 'They didn't have a housekeeper or a maid, so it had beautiful things - furniture and paintings - but there was dog poop on the floor.' Health experts tell the Mail that the allegedly appalling conditions may explain the presence of the deadly Hantaviruses in the home. 'Some of the poop had been there for a while and was covered in newspaper,' they added. 'The inside of the house was bad. Nothing had been dusted. There was nothing in the fridge.' 'Betsy thought she could handle it, but she couldn't,' they told the Mail. 'People here are blaming her. Gene was skin and bones by the end. He didn't have to die.' Some concerned friends and fans are now also asking how Hackman's adult children - Elizabeth, 62, Leslie, 59 and son Christopher, 65 - could have gone more than two weeks without checking in on their ailing dad. One woman, who met Betsy through their shared love of dogs and withheld her name, said, 'Everyone in our friendship group is asking the same questions. It makes no sense that no one would report that they hadn't heard from them in weeks.' 'Yes, Gene had become more reclusive because of his Alzheimer's, and we hadn't seen him around Santa Fe the way we once did,' the source said. 'But everyone assumed someone would be checking up on them, particularly when Gene was 95 and in poor health.' 'How could they lay there so long that their remains were mummified?' she asked. 'It's horrible. Everyone is asking how Gene's kids could go so long without hearing from him and not be worried?' In a brief interview with the Daily Mail on the day that Hackman's death became public, his daughter Leslie said it had been 'a few months' since she had last heard from her father, despite insisting they remained 'close' She added her father had been in 'good health' leading up to his death and that he 'liked to do Pilates and yoga.' The family later released a statement saying they were 'devastated by the loss.' Daughter Elizabeth and son Christopher did not respond to multiple Daily Mail requests for comment. Hackman's golfing buddy Allin said that he believed Hackman and his children were distant. 'I didn't get the impression that he and Betsy saw much of Gene's children. I never saw them (Hackman's children) in Santa Fe and didn't hear him talking about them.' If it is indeed the truth that Hackman and his children were estranged – which the children deny – the Daily Mail's source suggests Betsy was not to blame. 'She wanted him to know his kids, she never put any sort of barrier up, certainly not in the early days,' claimed another close friend.