My theory, FWIW:
She had some kind of medical episode in the bathroom and collapsed. The pills scattered as she fell.
She had locked up the dog right before this. (Dog was being a nuisance perhaps?)
Hackman found her, and he was heading outside to see if any of the hired help were around.
He fell down in the mudroom and couldn’t get up. His glasses and cane were found next to him. He died there, unable to lift himself. This happened to my mom at age 85. She fell in the bathroom. She was on the floor for 20 hours, and then fortunately a neighbor stopped by the house to check on her.
That’s a plausible theory, good thinking.
That does make sense. I read about how tile/bare flooring can act like a heat sink thus killing you.
I agree with your scenario but I think Hackman may have had a heart attack soon after he found his wife.
She had some kind of medical episode in the bathroom and collapsed. The pills scattered as she fell.
She had locked up the dog right before this. (Dog was being a nuisance perhaps?)
Hackman found her, and he was heading outside to see if any of the hired help were around.
He fell down in the mudroom and couldn’t get up. His glasses and cane were found next to him. He died there, unable to lift himself. This happened to my mom at age 85. She fell in the bathroom. She was on the floor for 20 hours, and then fortunately a neighbor stopped by the house to check on her.
I think this may be a possible and plausible scenario. She fell ill, perhaps fainting or having a stroke or a heart attack and he heard her fall and was either coming to help her or going to try and get help and fell himself (it’s been said he was becoming increasingly frail) and perhaps the stress trigged a heart attack in him, (he had a bad ticker).
FWIW I had a Huskey, while a beautiful and loving dog and sort of broken house, she couldn’t be trusted to be left alone for any extended time. She also liked to eat cat poop out of the cat’s litter box or get into the trash, etc. So, there were times, even when I was home that I temporarily crated her, like when I was going to take a long shower or bath, because if not, she’d find trouble so that could explain why the one dog was crated.
Also, after my dad came to live with me after my mother died, my niece’s daughter was going to the elementary school just up the street from my house, and she would come after school and hang out with her great grand pa until I got home and or her mother picked her up after work. They both very much enjoyed their time together.
But one day I came home, and my great niece greeted me at the door and told me “Grandpa is on the floor”.
“What do you mean?!!!”
He had a bit of a cold but was fine when I left work that morning but soon became very ill and weak and having trouble breathing but didn’t want to call or “bother me”. When my great niece came after school, he tried to get out of bed but fell next to it and couldn’t get back up. She wanted to call me or call 9-11 but he was very insistent that she shouldn’t and that he was OK.
Of course, I called 9-11 when I got home and found him lying on the floor next to his bed and unable to get up. Long story short, he had developed bacterial pneumonia and after 12 weeks in the ICU he died. My poor great niece, who was at the time only about 7-8 years old blamed herself ☹
Before he moved in with me, he lived in a lower income seniors apartment (run by Catholic Charites with some HUD funding), not a nursing home or assisted living but it did have amenities one of which was a help call button that knowing my dad, he would have never used.
As far as blaming his children for not checking in with him every day, I know from personal experience that it can be a fine line to navigate.
My dad didn’t want me to help him make doctor’s appointments, shopping, etc., or other things he needed help with IMO, and resented me calling him every day to check in. But then at the same time expected me to drop everything I was doing, often at the last minute to take him to the doctors or to the grocery store.
If I tried to help him with these things, esp. in advance I was “treating him like a child”. If I didn’t “I didn’t care”. I could never win.