Prosecutors are investigating how a convicted murderer managed to strangle fellow inmate John Geoghan, a pedophile priest at the center of a church sex abuse scandal, inside one of Massachusetts' most secure prisons.
The Washington Post reported Monday Geoghan was followed into his cell by Joseph Druce, 37, who bound and gagged him before strangling him with a bedsheet, according to a union representative for prison guards.
Druce jammed the electronically operated cell door to prevent guards from opening it, tied Geoghan's hands behind his back and gagged him, The Post said. He then repeatedly jumped from the bed in the cell onto Geoghan's motionless body, according to the account by Robert Brouillette, an executive of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.
The 68-year old defrocked priest, who was serving a sentence for groping a boy while they were swimming, was a central figure in the sex scandal that sent shock waves through the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and abroad.
His prosecution helped uncover a string of pedophile cases that forced Cardinal Bernard Law to resign last year as leader of the Boston Archdiocese, home to more than 2 million Catholics and the emotional heart of the Church in the United States.
Geoghan's violent death shocked the city and more than 130 people who have filed lawsuits charging he abused them over a span of 40 years when he was being shuttled around several parishes in the Boston area.
"I had a moment of thinking 'He got what he deserved'," said Michael Linscott, 45, when he heard the man who had molested him as an altar boy 37 years ago was murdered.
"As victims we will live in our own prison forever, but Geoghan got off easy. He is never going to hurt anyone again, but he still had a lot of penance to do on earth," Linscott said, biting his lip at a news conference.
CRIMINAL CASES CLOSED
Geoghan died at a time the Church is offering to pay $65 million to settle abuse cases. Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer who represents more than 100 victims, said it was impossible to predict how the killing may affect these talks. But several criminal cases against Geoghan will now be closed, he said.
Officials refused to say how Druce, whose father said he held a grudge against homosexuals, managed to get near Geoghan in a special section of the Souza Baranowski prison 30 miles northwest of Boston where Geoghan was held in protective custody and had only limited contact with other prisoners.
"We can't release any details because the District Attorney's office is conducting an investigation," said Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections. Druce, who is serving a life sentence for murdering an elderly man, is now in isolation at the facility.
Psychiatrists say child molesters are often at great risk in prison because their fellow inmates -- convicted rapists, murderers and robbers -- tend to classify them as the most heinous criminals of all.
The Boston Globe reported that Druce's father, Dana Smiledge, said, "I can't understand why they would put a guy who would kill a sex offender in a cell with a sex offender."