Credit: Bucks County District Attorney’s Office
A judge has denied a compassionate release request for a 63-year-old man serving a sentence for a 1978 murder that took place in Levittown.
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Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Senior Judge Rea Boylan issued the ruling last week that rejected Robert Buli’s emergency petition to live out his final months at his family’s home in Cobalt Ridge in Middletown Township’s Levittown section.
Buli, who is incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Montgomery County, filed a petition with the court in November.
He appeared before Boylan in December to argue for release under Pennsylvania’s compassionate release statute.
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Under state law, inmates with terminal or serious illnesses may seek a court order to be moved to a home or medical facility for medical or end-of-life care. The statute requires a judicial review of several criteria before such a request is granted or denied.
The case dates back to Nov. 13, 1978 when Buli, who was 16, and an accomplice, John Lekka, attacked 17-year-old Diane Goeke.
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According to court records, the pair beat Goeke with a two-by-four board and metal pipes before leaving her in an underground fort near Woodbourne Road.
When the two returned hours later and found Goeke still alive, they killed her by dropping a 220-pound concrete slab on her head. Her body was discovered the next day by schoolchildren, authorities said.
Prosecutors said Buli planned the murder because he believed Goeke was pregnant with his child for a second time. Goeke had given birth to Buli’s daughter two months prior to the killing, and the infant had been placed for adoption.
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After Goeke gave birth, Buli’s parents had forbidden him from seeing the teenager.
Buli was originally sentenced to life in prison as a juvenile.
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After a court mandate requiring the resentencing of juvenile lifers, Boylan resentenced Buli in 2017 to nearly 40 years. That sentence made him eligible to apply for parole in late 2026.
The Bucks County Courier Times, which first reported on the compassion release request, said Goeke’s immediate family have all died.
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Barbara Thomas, who was Goeke’s best friend, has continued to advocate for the killers’ imprisonment over the years, the newspaper reported.
During the 2017 hearing, Buli expressed remorse for the killing.
