Kenneth Boom told police the shotgun fired during cleaning, while investigators cited earlier threats and later statements in filing charges.
WELLSBORO, Pa. — Kenneth Jerome Boom remains accused of criminal homicide in the shooting death of his wife after Pennsylvania State Police said evidence gathered during the first hours of the investigation conflicted with his claim that a shotgun discharged accidentally while he was cleaning it. Boom, 62, was also charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and possession of an instrument of crime.
The charges arose from the July 30 death of Penny Boom, 61, at the couple’s home along Route 287 in Delmar Township. Public reports based on the court docket said Kenneth Boom was arraigned July 31 before Magisterial District Judge Robert L. Repard and ordered held at the Tioga County Prison without bail. A preliminary hearing was initially scheduled for Aug. 11. Publicly accessible sources reviewed through Sept. 20 did not establish the result of that hearing or a later court date. That leaves the available public record focused mainly on the allegations supporting the arrest rather than on evidence tested in a completed court proceeding.
Court-record summaries identify the case as involving one count of criminal homicide, two aggravated-assault counts, one count of recklessly endangering another person and one count of possession of an instrument of crime with intent. Those charges describe the prosecution initiated by the Commonwealth; they are not findings that Boom committed the offenses. No conviction in the case was identified in the material reviewed for this report. The Tioga County District Attorney’s Office was listed as representing the Commonwealth in an early docket-based report, while that same report said Boom had been advised of his right to seek appointed counsel. Later accessible reports did not clearly identify his current attorney.
What pushed the investigation toward homicide, according to police accounts, was not simply the fact that Penny Boom had been shot. Investigators said they obtained evidence suggesting a dispute immediately before the shooting and statements after it that did not initially include the accidental-cleaning explanation. A former neighbor told police Penny Boom had sent messages during an argument saying she intended to leave her husband and that he had threatened to shoot her. She also sent a message meant to identify whom she feared if something happened to her, according to reports describing the affidavit. Police treated those communications as significant evidence about the circumstances preceding her death.
Kenneth Boom’s account to emergency services pointed in another direction. At about 5:15 a.m. July 31, several hours after police believe the shooting occurred, he reported that he had accidentally shot his wife while cleaning a 12-gauge shotgun. Troopers who responded found Penny Boom dead in the living room and a spent shotgun shell nearby, according to authorities. Local reporting based on the complaint described the firearm as a Silver Eagle semiautomatic 12-gauge shotgun. Boom later demonstrated for investigators how he said the gun had discharged. The available reports do not indicate that a court has determined whether that explanation is true or false.
Police documented additional observations that became part of their investigative account. Troopers said Boom smelled of alcohol when they arrived and that his speech was slurred. When confronted about his wife’s reported messages to the former neighbor, Boom criticized that person but acknowledged that Penny Boom had said she would leave following a dispute about cats in the home, according to reports of the affidavit. Investigators did not publicly characterize alcohol as the cause of the shooting in the reports reviewed, and the existence of the observations alone does not establish intent. They were among the circumstances police recorded while deciding how to handle the death.
A separate witness supplied an account of what Boom allegedly said before he contacted emergency services. Police said Boom attempted to call a friend 11 times between 3:19 and 4:34 a.m. The friend responded at about 4:40 a.m. and said Boom told him, “I did something bad.” According to authorities, Boom then said he had shot his wife during an argument about their cats after she threatened to leave. The friend told investigators he expected Boom to say the shooting was an accident but did not hear him do so. He advised Boom to call 911. The emergency call containing the accidental-cleaning explanation followed roughly half an hour later.
Investigators also collected information about the timing before those calls. State police said the couple had been arguing during the evening of July 30. A neighbor reported hearing a “pop” from the direction of the residence between about 8 and 9 p.m., and investigators believe Penny Boom was shot that evening. There was therefore a period of several hours between the suspected time of the shooting and the call that brought authorities to the property. Early local coverage said state police activated a major case team after Tioga County emergency services reported the shooting and that medical responders dispatched to the residence were later recalled.
The sequence is important because the prosecution described in police reports depends on more than one category of evidence. There are the statements Penny Boom allegedly made before the shooting, a neighbor’s description of a sound, phone-call activity attributed to Kenneth Boom during the night, the friend’s account of Boom’s words and the explanation Boom later gave 911 and troopers. None of those pieces, standing alone in media reports, amounts to a verdict. Together, however, authorities said they had enough to charge him rather than classify the death as an accidental shooting. The ultimate weight and admissibility of evidence are matters for the courts.
Penny Boom’s obituary, published separately from the criminal-case reporting, records a life rooted in the Wellsboro community. She was born Penny Marie Gleason in Blossburg on Jan. 14, 1965, and worked in the radiology department at UPMC Wellsboro. Her family said she enjoyed morning walks, walks around the Green during lunch breaks, cooking for relatives and spending time with friends. She rode a motorcycle, supported benefit events and saved pull tabs for Ronald McDonald House programs. The obituary described a home where children, grandchildren and a great-grandson were regularly greeted with meals, laughter and affection.
The family said Penny Boom had spent 38 years supporting her household through medical challenges, losses and accomplishments. She was survived by her mother, children, grandchildren, great-grandson, brothers, nieces and other relatives, according to the obituary, which also remembered a daughter who had died nine years earlier. A public memorial notice scheduled visitation and a service in Wellsboro on Sept. 13. The criminal case will necessarily focus on a limited set of hours and evidence, but those memorial records document the much longer personal history preceding the events that brought state police to her home.
With no later procedural development confirmed in the accessible material reviewed for this update, the case remains publicly defined by competing descriptions of the shooting. Boom told authorities the discharge was accidental and occurred during gun cleaning. Investigators cited communications and witness accounts that they believed justified a homicide charge. Determining which evidence is admissible, what weight it deserves and whether the Commonwealth can prove the elements of its charges beyond a reasonable doubt is the function of the continuing court process, not of the initial criminal complaint.
Author note: Last updated September 20, 2026.