A Pennsylvania man has pleaded guilty to the murder of a chiropractor who prosecutors say he blamed for failing to end the pain he suffered in his jaw.
Joseph O’Boyle pleaded guilty to charges of criminal homicide, criminal trespassing and possession of an instrument of crime, according to WTFX-TV.
Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said O’Boyle visited Dr. James Sowa for treatment of pain in his jaw.
O’Boyle later became obsessed with Sowa and blamed him for making the pain worse.
Weintraub called the killing “poetic perverse irony” because O’Boyle beat Sowa to death, using a blunt instrument to attack the doctor in the head and jaw — the same area in which he wanted treatment.
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The murder took place in November 2020, and O’Boyle was spotted on a home surveillance video.
Joseph O’Boyle killed Dr. James Sowa after reportedly threatening to sue him over his jaw pain, prosecutors said. https://t.co/BD4hFWXjs2
— KYW Newsradio – NOW ON 103.9 FM! (@KYWNewsradio) May 28, 2022
According to the Bucks County Courier Times, O’Boyle was inside the home Sowa used as his office for less than a minute.
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Sowa was hit three times in the back of the head, fracturing his skull in two places.
After Sowa fell to the floor, O’Boyle hit him in the jaw multiple times, leaving behind six hexagonal bruises on the doctor’s chin.
Prosecutors have said that O’Boyle’s father told them that his son confessed to the crime and that when he mentioned Sowa’s death, his son rubbed his jaw.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the O’Boyles told a grand jury that at one point their son talked about suing Sowa.
O’Boyle was accused of punching a Bensalem detective when his home was searched, and to satisfy those charges, he pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault and counts of recklessly endangering another person, resisting arrest and simple assault.
According to the Bucks County Courier Times, O’Boyle’s general guilty plea to the criminal homicide charge will result in Bucks County Judge Wallace Bateman deciding which level of murder is the right charge.
First- and second-degree murder have sentences of life in prison; third-degree murder has a sentence of 40 years.
Public Defender Joseph Haag said that O’Boyle has schizophrenia.
Court documents show he stopped taking his medication about three months before Sowa was killed.
