Defrocked priest murdered

last updated 8 January 2015

Boston

John Geoghan, a defrocked Catholic priest and convicted child molester, was murdered in his prison cell by a fellow inmate this week. Joseph Druce, 37, already serving life for a 1988 “gay-bashing” murder, followed Geoghan into his cell on a special block for inmates in protective custody, officials said. He then allegedly bound and gagged Geoghan with bedsheets or a T-shirt after jamming the door with a paperback book so guards couldn’t intervene. Geoghan, 68, was convicted in 2002 of groping a 10-year-old boy, one of 130 people who accused him of abuse. The case helped ignite a scandal still roiling the Boston archdiocese, after documents released in court indicated that bishops sheltered Geoghan by shuttling him from parish to parish. State and local officials have opened investigations into Geoghan’s murder.