A Minnesota doctor accused of murdering his pharmacist wife was already calling himself a widower before he killed her, a newly unsealed search warrant suggests.
Connor Bowman, 31, has been charged with first- and second-degree murder in connection with the death of Betty Bowman, a 32-year-old pharmacist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, according to authorities.
He has not yet entered a plea to the charges. His defense attorney, Michael Schatz, did not immediately respond to Headlines & Global News' request for comment.
Investigators allege in August 2023, Bowman, a poison control specialist, killed his wife of two years with a fatal dose of colchicine – a drug typically used to treat gout, an autopsy found, the criminal complaint stated.
Betty died in the hospital after experiencing heart issues, fluid in her lungs, and organ failure.
But by the time Bowman allegedly slipped a deadly amount of colchicine in Betty's smoothie, he was already referring to himself as a widower on the dating app Bumble.
A Google inquiry days before her death revealed Bowman allegedly searched, "is widow gender neutral," police wrote in a search warrant made public last week.
"These searches, and other conversations identified so far appeared consistent with the statements provided by witnesses during the investigation, that Connor was identifying himself as a widower, even before Betty died," Rochester Police Det. Alex Kendrick wrote, according to NBC News.
Within days of Betty's death, Bowman communicated with at least two women on the dating app, telling one woman that his late wife would have wanted him to move on, police said.
Betty's close friend, Sarah Leeser, told investigators that a "red flag" was that "Connor had not shown any grief after Betty's death" and he had "even invited her and some other friends out for drinks" two days after she died, the warrant stated.
"At the hospital, it [his reaction and behavior] was off," Leeser told NBC Wednesday. "I mean, everyone else was devastated, and he was not."
Detectives allege Bowman was motivated to kill Betty for a $450,000 life insurance payout.
He was arrested in October 2023, and is scheduled to appear in court in June.
