Joseph O’Boyle, 23 of Bensalem has been sentenced to 37 to 74 years in prison for the killing of Bensalem chiropractor Dr. James Sowa.
O’Boyle was convicted on June 10, 2022, of third-degree murder after entering an open guilty plea two weeks ago to criminal homicide generally, criminal trespassing, and possession of an instrument of crime, leading to a degree-of-guilt hearing this week before President Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr.
For three days, Deputy District Attorney Megan Hunsicker and Assistant District Attorney Christine Sassane presented evidence, including surveillance footage and testimony from several witnesses, to show O’Boyle intentionally killed Dr. Sowa in his chiropractic home office on Nov. 2, 2020. O’Boyle had previously pleaded guilty to assaulting a Bensalem detective investigating the homicide.
O’Boyle beat Sowa with a blunt object in his home office on November 2, 2020, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said.
Prosecutors said O’Boyle entered Sowa’s office with no appointment and struck the doctor in the head multiple times. While Sowa was on the floor unconscious, O’Boyle repeatedly struck him in the jaw, killing him.
Sowa’s records showed that O’Boyle had been a patient of his in September of 2020, the prosecutor’s office said.
O’Boyle’s family said he was upset with the treatment he received for his jaw pain at the appointment and intended to sue the doctor for making his pain worse.