Credit: Bucks County District Attorney’s Office
The Bensalem Township man who killed a Lower Bucks County chiropractor will spend the next several decades in state prison.
Joseph O’Boyle, 23, was convicted Friday of third-degree murder and sentenced to 37 to 74 years behind bars. He previously entered an open guilty plea before Bucks County Common Pleas President Judge Wallace Bateman in May to criminal homicide generally, criminal trespassing, and possession of an instrument of crime, leading to a degree-of-guilt hearing last week.
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O’Boyle murdered Dr. James Sowa, 64, a Neshaminy High School graduate who grew up in Penndel Borough, in his home chiropractic office at 3161 Hulmeville Road in Bensalem on November 2, 2020.
Sowa was discovered dead at his home office at 3:40 p.m. on November 2 after a 9-1-1 call. Authorities said his final known communication was a phone call to his wife around 8 a.m.
According to the inquiry, O’Boyle entered the chiropractic office without an appointment and assaulted Dr. Sowa by hitting him in the back of the head three times with a blunt object, two of which fractured his skull. O’Boyle repeatedly assaulted Dr. Sowa’s jaw area with a blunt object or smashed his jaw area with a blunt object while he was immobilized on the floor. Dr. Sowa died as a result of those blows.
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An autopsy revealed Sowa had sustained major head injuries as a result of blunt force trauma.
In September 2020, O’Boyle was a patient of Sowa, according to his records. O’Boyle’s relatives said the man was dissatisfied about the treatment he received for jaw pain that day, and that he wanted to sue Sowa for exacerbating his discomfort.
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O’Boyle’s mother testified before a grand jury that her son had difficulty holding down a job and was suffering from mental health concerns and despair. He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and sought treatment for it, as well as for jaw pain that he believed was related to his mental illness.
O’Boyle’s mother testified before the grand jury that her son stopped taking his medicine in August and grew irate, attacking his father at one occasion.
On November 10, 2020 as the death investigation was underway, detectives acquired and served a search warrant at O’Boyle’s home, where they discovered a suitcase full of clothes on the floor of O’Boyle’s bedroom, authorities said.
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At that time, O’Boyle lunged at a Bensalem detective and punched him in the head many times without provocation, and it required three officers to apprehend him, authorities said.
The detective was treated for his injuries and went through treatment for a probable concussion as a result of the assault.
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