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Joseph L.
Druce was sent to prison for murdering a gay
man after hitching a ride with him. Druce said the
man made a sexual advance, so he killed him.
Prison officials say Druce killed former priest
John Geoghan, whose conviction of child
molestation began the Boston Catholic Church sex
abuse scandal.
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By JOE CREA
SHIRLEY, Mass. — The murderer of defrocked priest
John Geoghan — one of the principal child molesters in
the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal — reportedly
told prison officials he was motivated to kill Geoghan
last Saturday because of a longstanding hatred of gays.
The inmate, Joseph L. Druce, is already serving a
life sentence for killing a gay bus driver 15 years ago.
Investigators say that Druce attacked the driver after
he allegedly made a sexual advance towards Druce.
Authorities said that Druce planned Geoghan’s death a
month in advance at the maximum security
Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass.
The 68-year-old Geoghan, who has been accused of
molesting nearly 150 boys over three decades and who
became the “poster boy” for the clergy sexual abuse
crisis, was serving a sentence of nine to 10 years for
assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy.
The state’s district attorney said that Druce tied
Geoghan’s hands together with a T-shirt and strangled
Geoghan with stretched socks, using a shoe as a garrote.
He then jumped off the cell’s bed, breaking Geoghan’s
ribs and puncturing his lungs. An autopsy concluded that
Geoghan died of “ligature strangulation and blunt chest
trauma.”
Geoghan had been in protective custody since being
transferred to Souza-Baranowski in April from the
MCI-Concord prison.
The superintendent at MCI-Concord had dismissed a
prison board’s recommendation to keep Geoghan in
“protective custody” at that particular facility, the
Boston Herald reported.
Jim Pingeon, litigation director for the
Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, said that the
violent death of Geoghan has underscored problems that
prisoner rights groups say have been around for years:
understaffed prisons and a pervasive culture of
indifference to the safety of vulnerable prisoners
serving sentences alongside those with a marauding
history and established pattern of extreme violence.
“It is a serious problem in the prison system,”
Pingeon said. “But I doubt much reform will come of this
death. Typically, what happens is that the institutions
say they will take the matter very seriously, conduct an
investigation and determine which reforms are necessary.
A few months will go by and a report will be issued that
will recommend a few changes, but nothing
significant.”
Pingeon questioned why a “quiet prisoner like
Geoghan” was placed in a maximum-security prison
designed to house the most violent prisoners.
“That’s simply not a category that Mr. Geoghan falls
into,” Pingeon said. “A prisoner like Geoghan who poses
no security threat should not be exposed to predatory
individuals who can take advantage of their
weakness.”
A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of
Correction, Kelly Nantel, said that the superintendent
ordered Geoghan to be transferred because of behavioral
problems.
Pingeon said that Geoghan contacted him last year to
complain about the treatment he received at MCI-Concord,
including “daily mistreatment by guards,” who allegedly
called him names like “Satan” and “Lucifer,” Pingeon
said. In one instance that Pingeon said Geoghan reported
to him, a guard had defecated in Geoghan’s cell. He
added that Geoghan had told him guards encouraged other
prisoners to harass Geoghan by posting news clippings
about his alleged crimes.
Pingeon acknowledged there were “behavior reports”
about Geoghan but noted that they were “trivial”
infractions that were likely “trumped up.”
Geoghan’s alleged killer, Druce, 37, was a
member of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nation. Authorities
say he murdered Geoghan because he thought he was gay.
Patrick McArron, the national president for
Dignity/USA, a gay Catholic group, said no one knows if
Geoghan identified as homosexual and added that
comparisons between gays and pedophiles was akin to
comparing “oranges and apples.”
“One doesn’t have to be gay to be a pedophile,” he
said.
McArron said that Geoghan’s death “was the ultimate
responsibility of the bishops’ inaction” after many
years of ignoring the burgeoning sex abuse scandal.
“The pedophiles needed help and they didn’t get it,”
McArron said. “Instead of removing these priests from
harm’s way and providing them with the counseling that
they needed to determine their psychological condition,
the bishops turned a blind eye and simply shuffled
priests around. Pedophilia is not just the pedophile’s
problem, it becomes everyone else’s problem and that
issue was not being dealt with [by the bishops].”
Handwritten notes from Druce’s psychiatrist in May
1989 show that Druce was an “angry, frustrated, blaming,
remorseless, intense determined man, believes in Satan,
unafraid, laughing as he declares his intent to kill
himself.” The notes also state that Druce expected “to
go to Satan and await the arrival of his enemies.”
Druce was prosecuted at the age of 22
after being picked up hitchhiking by George Rollo, a
51-year-old gay man. Druce beat Rollo after the bus
driver allegedly touched Druce’s groin. Rollo’s hands
and feet were tied and he was thrown into Druce’s trunk
of his car.
Rollo was driven to an abandoned parking lot at a
theater in Beverly, Mass., where Druce strangled Rollo
to death, despite the bus driver’s pleas for mercy,
prosecutors said.
“I would say he’s the spawn of the devil,’’ Lt.
Joseph Aiello, the Gloucester policeman who investigated
the case, told Associated Press. “He’s a very evil
person, one of the most vicious I’ve ever seen.”
Druce’s defense argued that he wasn’t criminally
responsible for Rollo’s death, since he had a mental
disease that prevented him from thinking
lucidly.
Druce was convicted in December 1989 of
first-degree murder by reason of “extreme atrocity and
cruelty.” He is presently serving a life sentence
without parole for the crime.
Authorities said that Druce had a history of violent
behavior and mischief within prison walls. In May, he
was convicted of sending fake anthrax to lawyers with
“Jewish-sounding names” and allegedly mailed his own
feces to the Massachusetts attorney general.
Many of Geoghan’s victims said they were
disappointed with the death of their abuser. Most say he
should not have been killed in prison. Many had hoped he
would use his sentencing to reflect on his crimes, said
David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors
Network of Those Abused by Priests.
Clohessy said that Geoghan was likely to stand trial
on possibly two criminal accounts and a civil one. He
said that because of a loophole in Massachusetts law,
Geoghan’s name is likely to be cleared in death.
“There are two problems with that,” Clohessy said.
“First, it rubs even more salt into the already deep
wounds these victims and their families feel. Secondly,
the death may well add to the already deep mistrust that
some victims have of the justice system. Many will say,
‘These guys always get off. Why should I bother to
report future abuses? These victims are being denied a
chance for these molesters to stand trial and allow the
truth to come out.’”.
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