WORCESTER (MA)
Boston Globe
By Franci Richardson, Globe Correspondent | September 2, 2005
WORCESTER -- The man charged with killing pedophile John Geoghan accused a correction officer at the maximum-security prison in Shirley yesterday of turning his back on a plot that he knew would result in the former priest's murder.
''Lonergan let me in there to kill . . . I mean, castrate him," an agitated Joseph Druce said of David Lonergan as he was led out of Worcester Superior Court yesterday.
Earlier during the pretrial hearing, Druce said, ''I was allowed to go into John Geoghan's cell" while a correction officer knowingly turned his back and went into his office. He later added: ''A corrections officer let me kill John Geoghan. . ."
Druce, who had been imprisoned for killing a man in 1988, is charged with the murder of Geoghan, who was strangled in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correction Center in Shirley in August of 2003. A law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said yesterday after the hearing that Druce has confessed to killing Geoghan. Druce himself has said publicly at a previous court hearing that he ''did it for the children."
At yesterday's hearing, Druce also accused Department of Correction officials of covering up for Lonergan.
''This isn't about correction officers, it's about the administration of the DOC," said Druce, who yesterday filed his own motion for a protective order against the department. ''My sanity is about to break. They're either going to kill me or I'm going to go nuts, but before that, so help me God, this court will know the whole story."