WORCESTER (MA)
Daily News Tribune
By Denise Lavoie
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
WORCESTER -- Killing pedophile priest John Geoghan was something he was "driven" to do, inmate Joseph Druce testified yesterday at his murder trial.
Drupe told a rapt jury that he believed he had to kill Geoghan to stop him from molesting more children.
"I had seen myself as the designated individual who had to put a stop to the pedophilia in the church," he said.
Druce is using an insanity defense in the Aug. 23, 2003, killing of Geoghan, a defrocked priest who was at the center of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
But prosecutors say Druce’s careful planning of the killing for more than a month shows he was not insane. During an aggressive cross-examination, prosecutor Lawrence Murphy repeatedly pressed Druce about the level of planning involved in the killing. He told investigators he had planned to kill Geoghan for five weeks.
But Druce repeated that he was "driven" to do it.