Several high-profile murders in the Philadelphia area will be put under a true crime spotlight in Oxygen’s new series, which premieres Saturday.

Philadelphia Murder The story of 10 murders that devastated the region will be told in hour-long episodes with archive footage, detective interviews and cinematic reenactments. Homeowner: Bucks County The series will air Saturdays at 9 p.m., said Sheriff’s Office Lt. Chris Mullen.

Crimes covered Philadelphia Murder‘s inaugural season spans several decades. Although the season will run for 10 episodes, Oxygen has revealed that it is only focusing on the first three episodes of the series, which deal with the murder of a police officer in Chester. Central City radiology technician and Bensalem chiropractor.

The Inquirer and Daily News covered these issues as follows:

“End of the Watch”: Killing of Chester police officer Michael Beverly

On Oct. 16, 2001, Chester police Cpl. michael beverly He was found shot and killed in the Highland Gardens section of the city. According to an Inquirer report at the time, Beverly, an 11-year veteran of the force, was found 10 feet from his unmarked cruiser, his service weapon still holstered.

Beverly, 36, who left behind a wife and five children, was remembered as a “conscientious police officer” and “a hard-nosed street cop who made good, clean raids,” said Wendell N. Butler Jr., then commissioner of the Chester Police Department. he told The Inquirer in the days after Beverly’s murder. Approximately the day of his funeral 1,000 mourners representing more than 80 police departments They paid tribute from as far away as Ottawa, Ontario.

Beverly was working the night shift as a supervisor when she died. The researcher reportedHe was known to be “a stickler for procedure”. However, before the shooting that claimed his life, he did not radio his location to headquarters or tell his colleagues what he was doing on the night he was killed. As a result of the radio silence, Butler said in an interview about a month after Beverly’s death that the corporal “didn’t expect anything to happen.”

Investigators faced a frustrating lack of leads early in the investigation. But Butler, who would later become Chester’s mayor, told The Inquirer that he refused to accept the cul-de-sac.

“We will not fail,” Butler said. “I won’t let this happen.”

And on October 12, 2002, almost a year after Beverly’s death, the police had their man: Maurice Richard Day.

Investigators determined that Beverly had stopped at a local restaurant to pick up food for Day’s mother, Edwina Cottman, whom Day had befriended. Day, who was allegedly affiliated with the neighborhood’s Boy Street Boys drug gang, faced criticism from friends about how often he went to Beverly’s mother’s house, where he also lived. The researcher reported. Prosecutors alleged that Day took matters into his own hands and killed Beverly while she was delivering food to the police officer’s mother as a way to end the “teasing, taunting and taunting” he was receiving.Deputy district attorney James Mattera said:.

Day was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole in March 2004.

The day Day was sentenced, Beverly’s twin sister, Michelle, told The Inquirer: He said his family “accepts the jury’s verdict.”

“The Central City Demon”: Patricia McDermott, Philly serial killer’s latest victim

Patricia McDermott, like many others, started on May 17, 2005. A radiology technician working the early shift at Pennsylvania Hospital McDermott, 48, SEPTA He takes the bus into the city early in the morning from his home in Elkins Park.

He worked until 13:00 so he could spend more time with his two children. The researcher reported. But after he got off the Route 33 bus and headed toward Ninth Street, a man approached him from behind and shot him in the head. He was pronounced dead at 4.50am. according to an Inquirer report from the time..

McDermott’s murder was captured on US Post Office security cameras and the killer was seen fleeing the scene. Police published a composite sketch of a person of interest and investigators found a cartridge case from the gunman’s gun. The researcher reported.

However, investigators were unable to determine the cause of the incident. McDermott had not been robbed, and friends and neighbors had identified no enemies who might want to harm him.

However, the case was overturned after an anonymous tip came to the police in July 2005. It would have been McDermott’s 49th birthday. They arrested Juan Covington, 43, of the Logan section of Philadelphia..

“I thought the other day that if anything happened it would be on his birthday.” McDermott’s sister, Mary Moran, told the Daily News:. “I think he did it.”

Covington, a former SEPTA bus driver and contract medical waste hauler, was identified as a potential suspect through an anonymous tip, and police arrested him on July 12 after noticing him carrying a handgun. He was allowed to carry the gun, but his paperwork was faulty so the police took him in. A man matching Covington’s description, The researcher reported“Shortly” after McDermott was killed, he was seen on security cameras at Pennsylvania Hospital wearing the same clothes as the man in the security cameras. Covington had no criminal record.

Covington immediately confessed to McDermott’s murder, telling police that McDermott killed him because he “pushed a car into a machine that exposed him to radiation and turned it on.” detectives told The Inquirer. He would later confess to two murders and two attempted murders dating back to 1998.

Covington’s lawyer, Charles Peruto Jr., claimed that Covington suffered from schizophrenia and Psychiatric experts interviewed by the Daily News He said he showed signs of being a “schizopath” on par with serial killers such as David Berkowitz and Jeffrey Dahmer. Covington does not enjoy killing, instead becoming obsessed with people he sees as threats and eliminating them when he can no longer control his anxiety, the Daily News reported.

In March 2006, Covington pleaded guilty to three murders, including McDermott’s, as well as two attempted murders, but was mentally ill. A judge sentenced him to three consecutive life sentences, plus two sentences of 20 to 40 years. The researcher reported.

“One Minute Changes Everything”: Killing of James Sowa in Bensalem

James Sowa, a popular chiropractor in Bensalem, operated his business from his family home on Hulmeville Road near Street Road. However, on November 2, 2020, paramedics arrived at his home to report a medical emergency and He found 64-year-old Sowa dead with serious head injuries. The Bucks County medical examiner ruled Sowa’s death a homicide resulting from blunt force trauma.

The Inquirer reported that on the day of his death, Sowa spoke to his wife around 8 a.m. but did not answer calls from family members or patients, which worried his sons. That afternoon, one of Sowa’s sons went to the office and found him with serious injuries to his head and jaw. District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said the chiropractor’s life was “brutally taken from him.”

“We missed him terribly,” Bensalem Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo later told The Inquirer of Sowa. “His was an incredible story with an ending that no one could believe because no one felt hatred towards this man. “He is the kind of guy you want in your community.”

As of January 2021, police arrested and charged a former patient in connection with Sowa’s death.

Joseph O’Boyle, 22, had been suffering from jaw pain for years and began going to Sowa for treatment. The researcher reported. But the treatment didn’t work, and O’Boyle believed it made his pain worse. As a result, O’Boyle said he was considering suing Sowa, his family told investigators.

But on the day Sowa was killed, security cameras showed the Nissan Altima entering and exiting Sowa’s parking lot. Investigators found the vehicle was registered to O’Boyle’s mother.

O’Boyle appeared agitated when detectives interviewed him and lunged at one of the investigators, punching him in the head several times, The Inquirer reported.

Her parents later told the grand jury that O’Boyle told them he killed the chiropractor about a week after Sowa’s death, The Inquirer reported; They initially hid this fact from the police. A friend also told the grand jury that O’Boyle told him in Snapchat messages that he was impressed by Cosmo DiNardo, who killed four people in 2017 at a farm in Solebury Township in Bucks County.

In May 2022, O’Boyle to plead guilty to killing Sowaas well as attacking the detective interviewing him. He made a general defense of murder, admitting Sowa’s murder but objecting to the degree of murder that applied in his case.

The following month O’Boyle found guilty of third degree murderHe was sentenced to 37 to 74 years in prison.