A Pennsylvania patient, who had been seeking treatment for jaw pain, was found guilty of criminal homicide and other charges on Friday for murdering a chiropractor in November 2020.
Joseph O’Boyle, 23, will learn his fate in the coming months for criminal homicide, criminal trespassing, and possession of an instrument of crime. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault, as well as recklessly endangering another person, resisting arrest and simple assault, for punching a detective who was investigating the chiropractor’s murder.
On Nov. 2, 2020, the 64-year-old victim, Dr. James Sowa, was discovered dead inside his home and chiropractic office in Bensalem, a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
O’Boyle, who had been a patient of Sowa’s two months earlier, blamed the chiropractor for worsening his jaw pain, according to his relatives.
O’Boyle was captured on surveillance video pulling up to Sowa’s office on the morning of the murder without an appointment and spending just one minute inside before fleeing the scene.
According to investigators, O’Boyle struck the victim three times on the back of the head, fracturing his skull. While the victim was on the ground, O’Boyle then struck his jaw area with a blunt object several times.
Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub called the murder “poetic perverse irony” because O’Boyle attacked Sowa in the same area of the body that he was seeking treatment for, Fox 29 Philadelphia reported.
Following the killing, O’Boyle’s father confronted him about Sowa’s death and the 23-year-old “became agitated and started rubbing his jaw,” according to the district attorney. O’Boyle later confessed to his father that he killed Sowa.
Eight days after the murder, investigators executed a search warrant at O’Boyle’s home, where he attacked a detective by punching him in the head several times.
O’Boyle is due back in court on June 6 for a hearing to determine the degree of homicide. A sentencing hearing will be set at a later date.
