A grand jury charged prison inmate Joseph Druce with murder today over the death of paedophile priest and fellow inmate John Geoghan, who was found strangled and beaten in his prison cell, authorities said.

US PROSECUTORS investigating the prison death of defrocked priest John Geoghan want to know if security procedures broke down at the facility, allowing a neo-Nazi who hated homosexuals the opportunity to confront a convicted paedophile.

INVESTIGATORS are awaiting results of an autopsy on the catholic priest at the centre of a sex-abuse scandal who met a violent death in a Massachusetts prison.