WORCESTER (MA)
SouthCoastToday
By DENISE LAVOIE, AP Legal Affairs writer
WORCESTER -- The inmate accused of killing John Geoghan claims he found religion and saw himself as a savior of abused children when he strangled the pedophile priest in his cell, an investigator said yesterday.
Testifying in Joseph Druce's murder trial, Lt. Edward Hammond said Druce told him he had been ordained through the mail as a minister of the Church of the Chosen Ones.
He also said Druce said he and Geoghan, a defrocked Catholic priest accused of molesting 150 boys, used to sit together in the cell block and talk about religion.
Hammond, an internal affairs investigator with the state Department of Correction who interviewed Druce after Geoghan's death, said Druce told him he had "been theologized," and that the convicted killer signed a waiver of his Miranda rights as "Rev. Joseph Druce."
Geoghan, a central figure in Boston's clergy sex abuse scandal, was serving a nine- to 10-year sentence for groping a 10-year-old boy.