Doctor Charged With MURDERING Wife With Poison After 'Open Relationship' Went Wrong

Connor Bowman has now officially been charged with the first degree premeditated murder of his wife, per court docs obtained by KARE 11 — and the latest details are as dramatic as they are disturbing.

The former Mayo Clinic doctor was initially arrested last October for the killing of his wife. Betty Jo Bowman was checked into the hospital last August with stomach distress and died just four days later. While she was there, her doctor husband suggested she was suffering from hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, or HLH. Tests came back inconclusive, but Connor told people that’s how she died anyway.

However, police were given a tip that Connor might have been involved. One friend of Betty Jo’s recalled having tried a smoothie Connor had made for her — and joking at the time her husband “must be trying to poison her.” Betty said she didn’t think so but also refused to drink the rest of the smoothie.

And suspicion only heated up when he tried to stop her autopsy, demanding she be cremated right away. The Southeast Minnesota Medical Examiner’s Office took action and halted the cremation. When they went ahead with the investigation, they found Betty Jo had actually died from the toxic effects of colchicine, a medicine used to treat gout. Betty Jo didn’t have gout.

The thing is, Connor was a poison expert and thus would have known about the medicine’s effects. And according to the criminal complaint, evidence showed the doctor had actually researched colchicine shortly before his wife’s death. Just six days before she entered the hospital, records show he apparently converted Betty’s weight to kilograms and multiplied by eight. The fatal dosage of colchicine is .8 mg/kg. Meaning all he had to do was move the decimal one place on that calculation to get the exact number necessary to kill her. He also purchased the gout medication using his Mayo Clinic email address.

But why??

Well, police were told the couple had actually been discussing divorce. And one woman told investigators Connor mentioned he was going to get $500,000 in life insurance after his wife’s death.

But that’s not all! The reason for the divorce was, according to one witness, a failed attempt to spice up the marriage. Cops were told the couple had agreed to an “open relationship” — with no strings attached. However, that didn’t end up working out for them, per the witness, because Connor became obsessed with his new girlfriend. Betty Jo confronted him about the transgression and suggested a divorce. Police believe he didn’t want to deal with it — and decided to kill her for the money instead? Horrible.

Connor was arrested back in October and charged with second-degree murder. But on Friday a grand jury added a count of premeditated first-degree murder. The not-so-good doctor is being held by Olmsted County. His next court date is January 16.

[Image via Olmsted County Adult Detention Center/Betty Bowman/Facebook.]