Police in Minnesota conducted unconstitutional searches in the case of a Mayo Clinic doctor accused of poisoning his wife and the evidence collected in those searches will be tossed, a judge ruled this week.

Dr. Connor Bowman is charged with first-degree murder and accused of using gout medicine to kill his wife Betty Jo Bowman in August 2023 at their home in the Twin Cities area. Cops with the Rochester Police Department submitted numerous applications for search warrants that Connor Bowman’s attorney’s have argued were unconstitutional. Investigators collected 14 electronic devices plus an iPad in the weeks after Betty Bowman’s death.

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District Judge Kathy M. Wallace took issue with two search warrants and tossed the following information collected from 13 of the devices and iPad for violating the defendant’s right to privacy:

Media including texts, emails, photographs, notes, and/or audio files and
videos, including media regarding toxic/hazardous/controlled substances,
financial matters, divorce and/or personal relationship information.

Text messages/communication including conversations about toxic/
hazardous/controlled substances, financial matters, divorce and/or personal
relationship information.

Web/Internet browsing history including searches/websites/articles etc.
about toxic/hazardous/controlled substances, financial matters, divorce
and/or personal relationship information

Wallace wrote cops failed to meet the particularity requirement, which “prevents law enforcement from having unbridled discretion in determining what items should be searched or seized and from engaging in general searches and exploratory rummaging.”

In other words, Wallace believes the language in the warrants was too broad. At the time of the first application, cops knew of the Bowmans’ marriage trouble, his financial troubles and the fact that the victim ingested a smoothie with the gout medicine that allegedly led to her death.

“This knowledge demonstrates that law enforcement could have provided more specificity in the … search warrant by searching exclusively for data concerning toxic/hazardous/controlled substances, financial matters, divorce and/or personal relationship information,” Wallace wrote.

The judge also noted investigators applied for the second warrant at issue about a month after the first. By then, they knew a lot more and could have been more specific, she said. Despite this, the application was worded almost exactly the same as the first, she said.

It’s unclear how the tossed evidence will impact the state’s case against the doctor. Prosecutors have not commented on the matter.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Dr. Connor Bowman was charged in the summer of 2023 with second-degree murder in the death of Betty Jo Bowman, but a grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder in January 2024. His wife died at a hospital on Aug. 20, 2023, following a four-day stay for what doctors initially thought was food poisoning. Her condition “deteriorated rapidly” from the time of her admission and she began to experience cardiac issues, fluid in her lungs, and organ failure. She was considered a healthy person before her hospital admission, making her death suspicious, investigators said.

Cops grew even more leery of the doctor after friends said Betty Bowman was seeking a divorce and he was in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Friends also noted that as a pharmacy resident who also worked in poison control, he would have the knowledge to poison his wife if he wanted. The Southeast Minnesota Medical Examiner determined her cause of death to be toxic effects of colchicine and the manner of death to be homicide.

Investigators claim that Connor Bowman used his Mayo Clinic email address to buy the the drug colchicine — the drug used to treat gout — that they believe he used to poison his wife. He tried to blame her for buying the drug that killed her, saying she “fraudulently” bought the drug under his name, authorities said.

Detectives recently obtained information from a warrant on his phone which showed he was on the dating app Bumble by Aug. 29, just nine after his wife’s death. He identified himself as a widower and allegedly began chatting with a woman. The woman allegedly told cops she thought it was strange that he brought up the fact that he obtained a nearly $500,000 payout from his wife’s death.

Connor Bowman talked to another woman who asked if it was OK to be flirting with someone and he said it was fine and that his deceased wife would want him to move on and be happy, according to the warrant. He said his wife had died of “listeria poisoning,” a foodborne bacterial illness, “earlier in the summer,” the warrant said. The doctor allegedly told another woman his wife died of a morphine overdose about a year prior.

Cops also obtained his Google searches from his phone, which allegedly included looking for “is widow gender neutral” on Aug. 18, two days before his wife’s death.

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The doctor allegedly suggested to others and in his wife’s obituary that she suffered from hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, or “HLH,” which is a rare illness where certain blood cells build up and damage organs. But investigators learned she had no previous symptoms of HLH.

The day after she died, the medical examiner’s office alerted the Rochester Police Department about a suspicious death. The office had prevented a cremation from taking place due to the unusual circumstances, according to documents.

Connor Bowman had asked the medical examiner’s office that his wife should be “cremated immediately” because her death was natural, authorities said. But according to the medical examiner, they received a call from a woman who knew the Bowmans who said the couple was having marital issues and “talking about a divorce following infidelity and a deteriorating relationship,” a probable cause arrest affidavit said.

Defendant Bowman emailed death investigators at the medical examiner’s office asking if toxicology reports that were being completed were more “thorough” than what would typically be done at a hospital, the affidavit said. He also asked for a list of what would be tested.

Connor Bowman had attended pharmacy school and worked in poison control in Kansas and was currently in medical school. A spokesperson from the Mayo Clinic said in a statement to Law&Crime that his residency at the hospital had just finished in October.

“We are aware of the recent arrest of a former Mayo Clinic resident on charges unrelated to his Mayo Clinic responsibilities,” the statement said. The hospital would not comment further.

Betty Bowman had recently told others that her husband was in debt so they kept separate bank accounts. Connor Bowman told a friend he was going to receive a $500,000 life insurance policy as a result of his wife’s death. Investigators found a check for nearly $500,000 from an insurance company in the Bowman home.

In Rochester Police Department applications for search warrants previously reviewed by Law&Crime, friends of the couple depict a marriage on the rocks because of financial troubles and infidelity. Though the Bowmans were in an “open relationship,” the couple agreed they would not become emotionally attached to their other partners. However, Connor Bowman became infatuated with his new girlfriend, friends told detectives. Betty Bowman allegedly confronted her husband about the woman and suggested they start divorce proceedings. One friend said she went to see Connor Bowman at his home three days after the death to find the girlfriend there with him and his wife’s photos taken down, the warrant said.

Another pal said she was visiting with Betty Bowman 10 days before her death when she gave her a smoothie her husband had made for her in a Lilo & Stich cup. It “tasted very bad,” and the friend thought it was strange Connor Bowman had made a smoothie for his wife because he “never made anything for anybody,” according to the warrant.

“[The friend] said jokingly at the time that Connor must be trying to poison her, but didn’t think much of it at the time. Betty even joked that she had considered it at the time and said she didn’t think that would happen but decided to not drink the smoothie anyway and threw it out,” the warrant said. The friend became suspicious when Betty Bowman suddenly became ill and died.

The doctor also was not acting like a grieving husband typically would in the days following his wife’s death, the friends said. He seemed “stoic and calm,” even going out for drinks where he “appeared to be happy or at least indifferent” about his wife’s death two days after the fact.

One of Betty Bowman’s boyfriends told detectives that Betty Bowman, on Aug. 14, told him she “had a few days off work and was looking to spend some time with him.” The two saw each other the next day and texted later that night while she was drinking with her husband at home.

On Aug. 16, she told him she was so sick she could not sleep at all. She said she thought it may have been an alcoholic drink that she had that caused her illness because it was mixed in a large smoothie. She went to the hospital a short time later.

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Ethics

Prosecutor ‘poisoned the morale’ of DA’s office with fake harassment texts, disbarment order says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 10, 2025, 9:32 am CST

A former prosecutor in Colorado should be disbarred for faking four texts that she attributed to a co-worker, including one referring to her as a “sex doll,” according to a Dec. 31 hearing board opinion.

Yujin Choi of Denver fabricated the texts in October 2022 to make it appear that the co-worker was harassing her and then “doubled down on that deceit” by intentionally altering evidence, according to the hearing board, which is part of the Colorado Supreme Court’s Office of the Presiding Disciplinary Judge.

Choi allegedly doctored cellphone records and repeatedly deleted the texts. She claimed that her cellphone stopped working when she accidentally dropped it in the bathtub and asserted that her laptop also broke when she accidentally spilled water on it.

“In our view, this narrative is not plausible,” the opinion said.

Choi “pursued a personal vendetta” against the co-worker, criminal investigator Dan Hines, “by launching an informal smear campaign” for reasons “that remain opaque to us,” the hearing board said.

The New York Times, Law360, the Denver Post and Ars Technica (via the Legal Profession Blog) have coverage.

Choi, who was admitted to practice in May 2019, can appeal the decision. She was a deputy district attorney in the Denver district attorney’s family violence unit before she was fired for the alleged misconduct.

Choi sent the four texts to herself, changing the name in her cellphone to make it appear the co-worker was the sender, the hearing board concluded. It was the second time that she had accused Hines.

The first time, in 2021, Choi claimed that Hines had made an inappropriate remark in June 2021, and that he later sent a text that she considered to be harassing. An investigation was closed as unsubstantiated. Hines was nonetheless transferred within the office and told to avoid contact with Choi.

The texts at issue in the ethics opinion surfaced in October 2022. Choi was at a bar with friends when she showed them a text. It read: “Yujin, please stop talking about what I didn’t do to our colleagues. You are using your looks against innocent people. If you want to act like a sex doll to get a sugar daddy … fine, but that will not be me.”

Choi claimed that there were three more texts, all from Hines. They read, “Don’t be stupid,” “Let’s talk,” and “I’m sorry, hope you have a nice weekend.”

By disseminating the texts to co-workers and supervisors, Choi “perpetrated a false and harmful narrative that Hines had sexually harassed her by sending her these messages,” the opinion said.

Choi said she didn’t want the matter investigated, but her supervisors felt a duty to do so and required cooperation. When Hines was confronted with the texts, he logged in to his Verizon account to provide cellphone records and offered his iPhone for investigation. There was no indication that Hines sent the texts, the hearing board said.

Official records obtained directly from Verizon indicated that Choi sent and received the fourth text message in the Hines text thread at the time that she claimed to have received it, leading the hearing board to conclude that she also sent the first three messages. The first text displayed a time stamp indicating that it was sent more than 40 minutes after Choi texted a supervisor about it.

The damage included harm to Hines’ reputation and betrayal of co-workers who advocated for her during the investigation, the decision said.

Choi “poisoned the morale of the DA’s office, contributing to an environment in which victims feared they might be disbelieved and others feared they might be wrongly accused,” the hearing board said. “Further, her actions called into question whether the evidence in the criminal cases she prosecuted was genuine,” tarnished the reputation of prosecutors, and potentially undermined the credibility of sexual harassment victims.

A counselor had diagnosed Choi with post-traumatic stress disorder and vicarious trauma caused by Choi’s emotionally taxing work in the family violence unit. Her lawyers did not immediately respond to ABA Journal emails seeking comment.

Hines told the Denver Post that he “wouldn’t wish this upon anybody,” and he was “living in hell” after Choi’s first accusation. He has sued the Denver district attorney over the handling of the investigation.

The district attorney’s office later determined that Choi’s casework was in “excellent order” with no evidence of fabrication, a spokesperson told the New York Times. The office also thinks that the investigation was properly handled, the spokesperson said.

The woman who was caught on hidden camera spiking her U.S. Air Force husband’s coffee with bleach pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

Melody Felicano Johnson, 40 entered a guilty plea on Monday to two counts of adding poison or a harmful substance to food or drink. Prosecutors are recommending she serve two years in prison although she could serve as much as four years. After she’s released from prison, she will be on probation for up to three years.