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Joseph O'Boyle, of Bensalem, took a guilty plea in the fatal Nov. 2, 2020 beating of 64-year-old Dr. James Sowa in his Hulmeville Road home office District Attorney Matt Weintraub said.
He ultimately entered an open guilty plea to criminal homicide, criminal trespassing, and possession of an instrument of crime before President Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault and one count each of recklessly endangering another person, resisting arrest and simple assault on the officer.
O’Boyle has a hearing on June 6 to determine the degree of homicide for sentencing.
O'Boyle had been seeing Sowa for treatment of jaw pain and, after the visit, began blaming him for his worsening pain and became "obsessed" with him, investigators said.
He went into Sowa's office on Nov. 2, without an appointment, and started hitting the physician in he back of the head with a blunt object, Weintraub said.
While Sowa was incapacitated on the floor, O'Boyle repeatedly struck his jaw area with a blunt object or rammed his jaw area with a blunt object -- causing Sowa's death, the DA said.
Sowa was found dead after police responded to a medical call at his home around 3:40 p.m. Sowa's records showed O'Boyle had been a patient of his in September 2020, and witnesses testified O'Boyle was upset about the treatment he received that day for jaw pain.
Bensalem police detectives found Sowa's last known contact with anyone was 7:50 a.m. Nov. 2, when he spoke with his wife on the phone, Weintraub said.
Sowa had been missing several business and personal calls around 9:50 a.m.
Surveillance footage showed O'Boyle walking up the driveway to Sowa’s home, disappearing jus after 8:30 a.m., and re-emerging from where he disappeared less than a minute later, Weintraub said.
He then ran back down the driveway and fled, the DA said.
Surveillance footage captured the license plate of the white Nissan Altima O'Boyle was driving, which was registered to a home on Byberry Road, authorities said.
Bensalem police records found a response to that home months earlier when O'Boyle punched his father because O'Boyle refused to take his depression medication, Weintraub said.
A search of O'Boyle's home Nov. 10 turned up a suitcase packed with clothes on the floor. During the search, O'Boyle lunged at a Bensalem detective and struck his head multiple times with a closed fist, authorities said.
The assault was witnessed by several law enforcement officers, who took O'Boyle into custody, according to Weintraub.
He had been jailed since that day and was denied bail by a district judge because he was the subject of a homicide investigation, had violent propensities and was a flight risk, authorities said.
The homicide was investigated by the Bensalem Police Department and Bucks County Detectives. Deputy District Attorney Megan Hunsicker and Assistant District Attorney Christine Sassane will be prosecuting the case.
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