5 September 2024
ROCHESTER — The defense team for Connor Bowman, a Rochester man and former Mayo Clinic doctor accused of poisoning his wife in 2023, filed a notice before Wednesday’s contested omnibus hearing to lay out the defenses they will rely on during the jury trial.
Connor Fitzgerald Bowman is charged with two counts of murder, one for first-degree premeditated murder and another for second-degree murder without intent.
Bowman’s defense attorney Michael Schatz said in the court document filed on Tuesday that during the jury trial, the defendant will rely on the defenses that Bowman is not guilty, there was an alternate perpetrator and his wife’s death may have been a result of suicide.
A court document filed by the prosecution on Aug. 28 requested an order precluding the defense from presenting a defense other than not guilty.
A jury trial has not yet been scheduled for Bowman.
His wife, Betty Bowman, died on Aug. 20 after going to the emergency room days earlier complaining of dehydration and diarrhea.
According to the criminal complaint, the Rochester Police Department was notified on Aug. 21 by the Southeast Minnesota Medical Examiner’s Office of a suspicious death. Betty Bowman was scheduled to be cremated, but that was halted after the examiner’s office learned of possible suspicious circumstances.
She was admitted to a hospital with severe gastrointestinal distress and dehydration on Aug. 16, and her condition rapidly deteriorated.
A woman called the examiner’s office and said that Betty and her husband were having marital issues and were talking about filing for divorce due to infidelity issues.
Her symptoms were similar to those of food poisoning, but she did not respond to standard treatments and continued to deteriorate while at the hospital. She experienced cardiac issues, fluid in her lungs, and eventually organ failure. She was taken into surgery after it was discovered that part of her colon was necrotic, or dead tissue.
Connor Bowman suggested to doctors while his wife was hospitalized that she was suffering from hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare autoimmune disease in which white blood cells attack organs.
He told multiple people she died from this disease despite testing from his wife coming back inconclusive for it. He also included it in her obituary.
He told the medical examiner that she should be cremated immediately and argued that her death was natural. He also attempted to cancel the autopsy and asked investigators if the toxicology analysis would be more thorough than usual.
Connor Bowman worked in poison control in Kansas.
According to the complaint, the couple had separate bank accounts due to debt and he was going to receive $500,000 in life insurance following her death.
A witness told law enforcement that Betty Bowman said she had been drinking with Connor on Aug. 15 and she was feeling sick the next morning. She told her friend that she believed the drink, a large smoothie, had caused the illness.
A detective found that Connor Bowman had looked at his wife’s medical information while she was in the hospital.
A laptop from the University of Kansas that was owned by Connor Bowman was searched by the university, which found internet searches for colchicine, a drug used to treat gout. There were also several internet searches related to hiding information from police on the laptop, as well as a search for where to obtain sodium nitrate, a drug used to restrict oxygen in the bloodstream, a court document said.
Connor Bowman also searched for and found the lethal dosage of colchicine for his wife’s weight, according to the report. Police also found that he had purchased colchicine online.
During the investigation, search warrants filed for his electronic devices showed he was messaging women on dating apps as a “widow” before Betty Bowman died.
A toxicology report listed colchicine as a substance in Betty Bowman’s system. She did not suffer from any ailments that would require the drug. According to a search warrant filed in December 2023, Connor Bowman allegedly told an online pharmacy that Mayo Clinic had confronted him for ordering sildenafil citrate, generic Viagra, and colchicine from an online pharmacy less than two weeks before his wife’s death.
He was arrested on Oct. 20, 2023. Police found a receipt for a bank deposit of $450,000 in his residence.
In June, Connor Bowman’s attorneys filed 12 motions to suppress evidence and one motion to dismiss a grand jury indictment of first-degree murder in Betty Bowman’s death.
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