MASSACHUSETTS
Ledger-Enquirer
ADAM GORLICK
Associated Press
BOSTON - Potential jurors arrived in court Monday for the trial of a prison inmate accused of beating and strangling convicted pedophile priest John Geoghan, one of the men at the center of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
The trial of Joseph Druce will be less about whether he killed the former Roman Catholic priest in his prison cell in August 2003 than about whether he should be held criminally responsible.
Prison officials said they found Druce inside Geoghan's cell at the maximum-security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center with the door jammed shut so no one else could enter. They said Druce bragged openly about killing "the child molester" and told investigators he did it to "save the children."
Druce's lawyer, John LaChance, has said he plans to use an insanity defense, arguing during pretrial hearings that Druce was suffering from a "major mental illness."