WORCESTER (MA)
Boston.com
By Denise Lavoie, Associated Press | January 13, 2006
WORCESTER -- The prison inmate accused of killing John Geoghan said he ''conned" the pedophile priest into believing that he wouldn't hurt him, then wrapped socks around his neck and twisted them around a sneaker to tighten the noose until Geoghan died, an investigator testified yesterday.
Lieutenant Edward Hammond, an internal affairs investigator with the state Department of Correction, said during Joseph Druce's murder trial that the inmate appeared ''pleased with himself" as he gave a confession shortly after guards pulled him from Geoghan's cell at the Souza-Baranowski prison in Shirley in August 2003.
''I killed the child molester," Hammond said Druce boasted. ''He won't touch any more kids."
Geoghan, a central figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal, was serving a nine- to 10-year sentence for groping a 10-year-old boy, but he had been accused of molesting some 150 children.
John LaChance, the attorney for Druce, 40, says the convicted killer should not be held criminally responsible for Geoghan's death because he is mentally ill and was driven by an ''irresistible impulse" to kill the defrocked priest.