Jail inmate kills paedophile priest

Prosecutors investigated on Sunday how a convicted murderer said to bear a grudge against homosexuals managed to strangle fellow inmate John Geoghan, a paedophile priest at the centre of a church sex abuse scandal, inside one of Massachusetts’ most secure prisons.

Geoghan was apparently killed by Joseph Druce, 37, Worcester County District Attorney John Conte said on Saturday, declining to say how he was choked to death. An autopsy is planned. Geoghan, who was serving a sentence for child rape, was a central figure in the sex scandal that sent shockwaves through the Roman Catholic Church in the US and abroad.

Geoghan was defrocked in 1998 and his prosecution helped uncover a string of paedophile cases that forced Cardinal Bernard Law to resign as Boston’s archbishop late last year.

Geoghan was held in a special protective unit where he had only limited contact with other prisoners. He was attacked in Souza-Baranowski Correction Centre in Shirley, Massachusetts, one of the state’s most secure prisons. He later died in hospital, said Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.