PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A 22-year-old Bensalem man has been charged with killing a chiropractor who, prosecutors say, he blamed for ongoing pain in his jaw.
Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said Dr. James Sowa treated Joseph O’Boyle once in September.
“O’Boyle obsessively complained to his family that his jaw pain worsened after receiving the chiropractic care that he got from Dr. Sowa,” he said. “In a misguided way, (he) focused on Dr. Sowa as having caused his jaw pain or exacerbated it.”
On Nov. 2, Weintraub said O’Boyle killed the 64-year-old Sowa in his office by hitting him on the head with a blunt object. Then, police say he either hit Sowa repeatedly on the jaw or rammed his face into something.
“Almost as if that Old Testament chapter and verse — instead of an eye for an eye, a jaw for a jaw,” said Weintraub.
“The injuries that were caused to Dr. Sowa, that ultimately caused him to succumb and die, make the defendant’s actions seem like a poetic, perverse irony.”
O’Boyle is charged with homicide, following a grand jury investigation. He also faces charges for burglary, criminal trespassing and possession of an instrument of crime.
According to Bensalem police records, officers responded to O’Boyle’s home months prior when he allegedly punched his father because he refused to take his depression medication.
O’Boyle has been in custody since Nov. 10 for assaulting a Bensalem detective who was serving a search warrant in the investigation.