ohn J. Geoghan, the defrocked priest whose crimes triggered a sweeping clergy-abuse scandal, was strangled in a high-security state prison yesterday by a convicted killer with a white supremacist past, authorities said.Prosecutors plan to charge Joseph L. Druce, 37, with murder. Druce is already serving a life sentence for killing an elderly Gloucester man 15 years ago. The admitted neo-Nazi also pleaded guilty last year to an anthrax hoax after sending powder-filled envelopes containing threatening swastika-adorned notes to 39 Jewish lawyers around the country.
Geoghan’s death, at the age of 68, was the stunning end to a devastating career in which Geoghan was accused of molesting nearly 150 children — assaults that helped force the resignation last year of Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who returned him to parish work despite knowing of the alleged abuse. Geoghan was in prison serving six years of a nine-to-10-year sentence for fondling a boy in a public swimming pool a decade ago, and he was still awaiting trial in another child abuse case. Last September, the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $10 million to settle legal cases brought by 86 alleged victims of Geoghan, and another two dozen civil suits are still pending.
The attack occurred in the protective custody wing of the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, where prisoners are kept mostly isolated and apart, with prison guards constantly monitoring their movement. It was unclear last night how Druce obtained access to Geoghan.
