Sex–abuse priest murdered in prison

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.

John J. Geoghan was allegedly strangled and beaten on Saturday by Joseph L. Druce, a fellow inmate in the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley.

The former priest molested nearly 150 boys over three decades, documents have shown, and became a catalyst for the sex abuse scandal that shook the foundations of the Catholic Church in the US.

Geoghan, 68, was serving a nine to 10-year sentence for assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy. He’d been in protective custody since being transferred to Souza-Baranowski in April, said officials.

Druce, 37, a reputed member of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nation, was convicted in the June 1988 murder of George Rollo, 51, a gay bus driver who had picked Druce up hitchhiking. Druce, who then went by his birth name, Darrin E. Smiledge, attacked Rollo, stuffed him in the trunk of Rollo’s car, drove him to a wooded area and strangled him, according to court documents.

A fellow hitchhiker told investigators that Smiledge attacked the bus driver when Rollo made a sexual advance, according to the documents. An insanity defence failed and Smiledge was sentenced to life in prison.

Druce also pleaded guilty to sending fake anthrax from prison to lawyers with Jewish-sounding names and was sentenced to an additional 37 months in prison.

Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte said Druce will be charged with murder. He said Geoghan appeared to have been strangled.

An executive of the state corrections union, Robert W. Brouillette, said that Druce followed Geoghan into his cell and jammed the electronic cell door to prevent guards from opening it. Druce bound Geoghan’s hands behind his back with a sheet and gagged him. He then repeatedly jumped onto Geoghan’s body from a bed and beat him with his fists.

“Many victims are disappointed,” said attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents more than 200 alleged victims of Geoghan and other clergy. “They wish Father John Geoghan had time to be in prison to reflect.”