CRIME HUNTER: Did doc’s open marriage lead to murder?

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The idea – like many – looked good on paper.

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A former doctor at the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Connor Bowman, 30, and his wife Betty, 32, decided to give having an open relationship a shot.

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The attractive couple was the epitome of American success to the outside world and their friends and family. He had his medical career and Betty was no slouch either as an operating room pharmacist at Mayo.

Connor and Betty were from Wichita and hooked up at the University of Kansas in 2016 before he was accepted as an intern at Mayo. They even shared a corgi named Sir Crumpet II of Mulberry.

The deal was that the couple could have sex with anyone they wanted outside their marriage but there could be no emotional entanglements. Both Connor and Betty carnally indulged themselves in their newfound arrangement. No strings attached.

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The Bowmans would not be the first or last couple to see their amorous antics implode.

Connor Bowman had become infatuated with his latest girlfriend.

This was over the line and Betty confronted her husband about his newfound paramour. The attractive ginger also had another problem: Her husband was drowning in a sea of debt.

“They were talking about a divorce following infidelity and a deteriorating relationship,” one friend told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Hovering in the background was Betty’s $500,000 insurance policy.

Last August, Betty was admitted to a Rochester hospital suffering from what her hubby allegedly told doctors was apparent food poisoning.

Cops believe that like the Grinch, Connor Bowman thought up a lie and he thought it up quick.

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When Betty was admitted, her doctor hubby allegedly said she was suffering from cardiac issues and organ failure. Connor claimed his beloved wife had a rare medical condition called hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis that caused her white blood cells to build up and damage organs.

Four days later – on Aug. 20, 2023 – she died in hospital.

The problem was, detectives learned, Betty had never been diagnosed with any of the symptoms and didn’t show any. Until her final few days of life, she had allegedly been healthy as a horse.

Connor Bowman allegedly wanted his dear departed wife cremated el pronto, given that her cause of death was, uh, natural. And no autopsy is necessary, thanks.

A day after she died, the Southeast Minnesota Medical Examiner’s Office told the Rochester Police Department about the suspicious death and the quick cremation was torpedoed.

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Oddly, the young doctor also allegedly asked detectives if tox reports done by the cops were more thorough than the hospitals. Of course, Bowman should have known this: He was a poison control specialist.

What investigators allegedly discovered was that the Bowmans’ relationship had gone haywire in a whirlpool of jealousy and bitterness. They suspected she had been given a drug called colchicine used to combat gout – Betty didn’t have gout.

At the rented luxury home the couple shared, when police arrived Connor was there with his new love interest. Any evidence, photos, etc. of Betty had been removed. In addition, they allegedly discovered a bank deposit receipt for $450,000.

Betty was insured for a cool half mill.

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And the couple’s friends had a lot to say.

Days before she died, one of her friends tasted a smoothie that Connor had whipped up for his wife. After one sip, she joked that hubby “Connor must be trying to poison” his bride.

Betty joked that “she didn’t think that would happen” but for some reason did not drink the smoothie.

Others suspected Connor’s involvement allegedly including Betty’s boyfriend on the side who told investigators his gal pal was deathly sick in the days before she was admitted to hospital. After a night of boozing with Connor, she could not sleep.

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She allegedly told her clandestine paramour she suspected the culprit may have been the booze that Connor mixed into a large smoothie.

Investigators allegedly learned that using his Mayo Clinic address, Connor ordered up the deadly drug and he also used an online calculator to determine how much poison he needed to use to send Betty to the morgue.

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Friends also noted that for a man whose wife had just died tragically, Connor was pretty calm, maybe even “indifferent.” He even managed to sneak out for a booze-a-ramma with the boys.

And when detectives confronted Connor, he allegedly blamed his wife for buying the colchicine under his name.

Connor Bowman was initially charged in October 2023 with second-degree murder. But last week that charge was upped to first-degree murder.

Bowman is expected back in court on Jan. 16.

If convicted, he faces the grim prospect of life in prison without parole.

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@HunterTOSun

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