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Patient with Extreme Pain Fatally Beats Philadelphia-Area Chiropractor: "A Jaw for a Jaw"
Dr. James Sowa, a 64-year-old chiropractor, was found bleeding and unconscious in his home. Investigators traced the crime to a suspect who was angry at him for a shocking reason.
Bensalem, Pennsylvania, a quiet suburban community just outside of Philadelphia, was rocked on November 2, 2020, by the brutal killing of an admired health professional and community member.
At around 3:30 p.m., Dr. James Sowa, a 64-year-old chiropractor, was found bleeding and unconscious in his home by his son Alex, who called 911. After racing to the scene, paramedics determined that Sowa was dead.
“It appeared that his whole jaw was shattered,” said Dave Nieves, a retired Bensalem Township Police Department detective. "There were teeth on the floor.”
"The injuries would indicate to me that it was some violent attack,” Nieves said in the “A Minute Changes Everything” episode of Philly Homicide, airing Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
Detectives found no signs of disturbance in Sowa’s residence, which contained his home office.
“We believed that this was a very short period of time that the assault occurred,” said Glenn Vandegrift, a detective sergeant with the Bensalem Township Police Department.
Who was Dr. James Sowa?
Through the victim’s wife, Barbara Sowa, and sons Alex and Kurt, who were teachers in their late 20s at the time, detectives learned that Dr. Sowa was born in Philadelphia and spent the previous 40 years living and practicing in Bensalem.
“I always thought [about] what kind of husband I wanted to be married to, and I always said he made that list look sick, because he was that and so much more,” his wife Barbara said.
“We had a good, happy family,” she added.
“He was a people person. He helped people,” said Sowa's friend Charles Kumbat. “He knew how to talk to people.”
Despite the sunny appearances, investigators had to dig to see if “deep, dark secrets” within the Sowa family could have motivated the heinous killing, said Vandegrift.
Preliminary interviews at the crime scene with the shocked and grieving family members turned up no immediate leads. Investigators arranged to have follow-up interviews at the police station the next day.
What killed Dr. James Sowa?
The forensic pathologist determined that Sowa’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. Blood samples collected at the crime scene all came back as belonging to the victim.
“There was no real evidence to support who would have done this. In most crimes, there’s some type of connection,” Nieves said on Philly Homicide.
Follow-up interviews with the Sowas helped establish a timeline for the killing. Barbara told police that she’d gotten to work and, per her custom, checked in with her husband. On November 2, she called him at 7:35 a.m.
Alex, who found his father dead, told investigators that he and his wife visited his father every day between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
After being interviewed at the station, the Sowas returned with police to the crime scene. “Kurt kind of volunteered his opinion of what possibly could have happened,” Nieves said of Sowa's other son.
In a recording, Kurt is heard saying, “It went down within seconds. The guy wasn't here for more than a few minutes at best.”
Detectives were taken aback. “That kind of raised a little bit of a flag with us,” said Vandegrift. “Does Kurt know too many details in this case?”
Kurt’s comments about his father’s ability to defend himself physically also initially took investigators by surprise. But after thorough checks, the Sowa family's alibis all checked out, clearing them from suspicion as they grieved their loss.
As the investigation continued, detectives came to understand Kurt’s knowledgeable perspective on the crime. “Kurt was an avid crime show watcher,” said Vandegrift.
Detectives look at Dr. Sowa's patient list and surveillance footage
Investigators focused on Sowa’s clients. “Could it have been a patient that was dissatisfied with treatment?” said Deanna Durante, a reporter at Philadelphia-based NBC10 News. “Did he have any malpractice claims?”
Detectives learned that on the day of the killing, Sowa had a patient scheduled for 1:30 p.m. The patient told police that when she showed up for the appointment, she couldn’t get into the office.
Police continued to scour patient files and turned to another line of investigation. The team hit the streets to track down any possible surveillance footage from the area.
“If we could capture a vehicle, a person, anything that could lead us in a certain direction in the investigation, it would be helpful,” Vandegrift explained on Philly Homicide.
Police found that a beer and soda store within a quarter of a mile of the crime scene had a camera that faced the doctor's house.
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Investigators reviewed the tape several times. They found that at 8:25 a.m., a figure was seen in the driveway. “The person walks towards the doctor's house, walks in, and then 53 seconds later, comes running out,” said Nieves.
Investigators now had a timestamp of when the killing occurred. As they continued to scrutinize the video, they saw a white vehicle pull out from behind a business near the Sowa residence.
Through a painstaking process using cameras positioned around the streets of Bensalem, detectives traced the path of the white car. Grainy footage made it difficult to identify the make and model.
Detectives eventually determined the car was a Nissan Altima. An image of the vehicle captured at an intersection showed the front passenger seat with a camouflage-patterned cover. But the driver was unidentifiable.
A suspect is identified
A week into the investigation, detectives located an image of the license plate on the suspect’s car. It was registered to 23-year-old Joseph O’Boyle. Investigators learned that O’Boyle was seen by Dr. Sowa on September 14, 2020, just a couple of months before the chiropractor was killed.
A check of O’Boyle’s rap sheet showed that he had assaulted his father in August of 2020.
On November 10, 2020, police obtained a warrant to search the O’Boyle residence. Nieves, who knew O’Boyle when he was a kid from coaching middle school basketball, described the suspect as now appearing “clenched and just robotic.”
During the search, O’Boyle attacked Nieves and had to be restrained by several officers. “I was ordered to go to the hospital to get checked with potential concussion,” Nieves told Philly Homicide.
O’Boyle was arrested for assaulting the detective. A search of the suspect’s car turned up a seat cover matching one seen in the video, but no other evidence was found to link him to the killing.
“Joey O'Boyle didn't allow us to interview him,” said Vandegrift. “He was already represented by an attorney, so our case was still circumstantial.”
During a grand jury investigation, O’Boyle’s parents revealed that he had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, and that he suffered from extreme pain in his jaw.
O’Boyle believed the chiropractor made his pain worse. Dr. Sowa’s fatal injuries were to his head and jaw.
In a recorded Bucks County District Attorney's Office press conference, the theory of the crime was presented: “Based on the injuries that Dr. Sowa succumbed to, instead of an eye for an eye, [it was] a jaw for a jaw.”
Who killed Dr. James Sowa?
On January 8, 2021, O’Boyle was charged with Dr. Sowa’s murder. On June 10, 2022, he was found guilty of third-degree homicide. He was sentenced to 37 to 74 years in prison.
To learn more about the case watch the in “A Minute Changes Everything" episode of Philly Homicide, airing Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
