Authorities were clued in to a Minnesota poison control specialist's alleged role in his wife's death after a concerned friend reported the couple's marital issues shortly after the doctor asked for her to be "cremated immediately."
Dr. Connor Fitzgerald Bowman is facing a second-degree murder charge in connection to the death of his wife, 32-year-old Betty Bowman.
He was arrested during a traffic stop in Rochester, Minnesota, on Friday, per a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital. He is being held at Olmsted County Jail, online records show.
Betty died in the hospital on Aug. 20 following a four-day ordeal with severe dehydration and diarrhea that doctors said "deteriorated rapidly."
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Doctors' initial treatment for food poisoning was ineffective, and Betty began to experience organ failure, cardiac issues and fluid in her lungs. The woman was perfectly healthy before she was admitted to the hospital, per the complaint.
Detectives would later learn that Connor, 30, used his medical credentials to access his wife's electronic health information at the hospital, then again a few days after she died. This information included the medication she was administered, her reported allergies and an operating room log, according to the complaint.
Connor wrote in his late wife's obituary that she suffered from hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) – a rare illness where certain blood cells are over-produced and damage organs. Tests performed for HLH were inconclusive, police wrote.
The husband reportedly told the Southeast Minnesota Medical Examiner's Office that his wife should be "cremated immediately." The doctor also asked the office if the toxicology reports they would run on his wife would be more "thorough" than what was typically done by the hospital via email, per the complaint.
Amid these communications, per the affidavit, a concerned wife reached out to the examiner's office, telling them that the Bowmans were having marital issues when Betty died, "talking about a divorce following infidelity and a deteriorating relationship."
Connor had attended pharmacy school, was currently in medical school and worked in poison control in Kansas. He completed a residency at the Mayo Clinic earlier this month.
"We are aware of the recent arrest of a former Mayo Clinic resident on charges unrelated to his Mayo Clinic responsibilities," the hospital said in a statement to Law & Crime, refusing to comment further.
Betty had recently told friends that her husband was about $500,000 in debt and that they kept separate bank accounts; meanwhile, per the affidavit, Connor told a friend that he stood to receive a $500,000 life insurance payout after his wife's death.
A man referred to only as "SS" told detectives that Betty told him she "had a few days off and was looking to spend some time with him" on Aug. 14. She and SS met up the next day and would text back and forth while the woman was drinking with her husband at home.
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Betty reportedly texted "SS" on Aug. 16, telling him she was sick and unable to sleep. She said, per the affidavit, that an alcoholic drink mixed with a large smoothie may be causing her illness.
A University of Kansas laptop seized from Connor by police showed that he had looked up the drug colchicine, which is used to treat gout, according to the affidavit. He was supposed to use the computer to look up medications when receiving calls to the university's poison control center – but neither he nor his coworkers received any calls about gout or colchicine during his work hours preceding his wife's death, per the affidavit.
On Aug. 5, Connor allegedly searched "internet browsing history: can it be used in court?," "delete Amazon history police," and "police track package delivery."
Five days later he searched "food v. industrial grade sodium nitrate" and looked up a journal used by medical professionals to search the lethality of different substances. He converted his wife's weight to kilograms and multiplied it by 0.8 to determine the lethal dose of colchicine, per the affidavit.
In the following days, Connor would purchase a gift card for a site that sold the drug, investigators wrote.
Betty's blood samples were sent to the Minnesota Department of Health for testing, where medical professionals concluded that 29 ng/ml of colchicine was in her bloodstream at her time of death. There was no reason that the drug should have been in her body, medical examiners noted, because she did not have any gout symptoms that would lead a doctor to prescribe it.
Betty's cause of death was determined to be the toxic effect of colchicine and her manner of death was ruled a homicide. Investigations found a $450,000 bank deposit note when they searched the Bowmans' home after the doctor's arrest.
Betty had graduated from the University of Kansas with a pharmaceutical doctorate in 2018 and worked as a "diligent and capable hospital pharmacist," per her obituary. She was pictured alongside her husband.
Connor was arraigned on Monday but has not yet been assigned a public defender, per the Olmsted County Court.
