Gene Hackman’s wife scoured the internet for information on flu-like symptoms and breathing techniques in the days before her death, it has emerged.

The details came as the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office released video footage of the interior of the home of Hackman and his pianist wife Betsy Arakawa on Wednesday (Australian time).

It showed a kitchen, bedrooms, and other rooms that appeared to be cluttered with dog crates, beds, books and boxes, including prescription bottles, toiletries, groceries and lots of clothes.

Tragically, the video also shows one of the couple’s dogs guarding Arakawa’s body.

Arakawa died in February of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome – rare, rodent-borne disease that can led to symptoms that include flu-like illness, headaches, dizziness and severe respiratory distress, investigators have said.

Acclaimed actor Hackman is believed to have died about a week later of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

The partially mummified remains of Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 65, were found in their Santa Fe home on February 26, when maintenance and security workers showed up at the home and alerted police.

A bathroom in the Hackman-Arakawa house. Photo: Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office

According to a lengthy report into the couple’s movements in the days before their deaths, released on Tuesday (US time), a review of open bookmarks on Arakawa’s computer on February 8 and the morning of February 12 indicated she was actively researching medical conditions related to Covid-19 and flu-like symptoms.

The searches included questions about whether Covid could cause dizziness or nosebleeds.

She also had mentioned in an email to her masseuse that Hackman had woken up February 11 with flu or cold-like symptoms. A Covid test was negative, but Arakawa said she would have to reschedule her appointment for the next day “out of an abundance of caution”.

Her last search was the morning of February 12 for a healthcare provider in Santa Fe.

Investigators also reviewed a call history to the Hackmans’ home phone along with voicemails and security footage from shops that Arakawa visited on February 11.

The redacted footage from inside the home released on Wednesday came from police body cameras and forms part of the investigation into what happened to the couple.

It shows officers walking through rooms of the couple’s multimillion-dollar compound, revealing many personal items.

Some parts of the home were tidy but others were in disarray, with faeces and urine still in a bathroom toilet bowls and a blood-stained pillow in one bedroom.

The written report describes officers going through rooms of the home and finding nothing out of the ordinary and no signs of forced entry.

A report obtained from the New Mexico Department of Health showed an environmental assessment of the Hackman property found rodent faeces in several outbuildings but not inside the living quarters. A live rodent, dead rodent and a rodent nest were found in three detached garages.

Nestled among the piñon and juniper hills overlooking Santa Fe, the Hackman home is not unlike others in the area, where mice are common within the surrounding landscape.

One of the couple’s three dogs also was found dead in a crate in a bathroom closet near Arakawa, while two other dogs were found alive. A state veterinary lab tied the dog’s death to dehydration and starvation.

-with AAP