WESTON, Mass. (AP) – Thomas Crane wasn’t sure what to make of the news that his former parish priest, John Geoghan, had been killed at the prison where Geoghan was serving time for molesting a boy.
The violent death of the man whose case opened the curtain on the clergy abuse crisis in Boston and revealed the extent of the church’s cover up of abuse spurred a tempest of conflicting emotions for Crane, victims and others touched by the scandal.
“The religious side of me says judge not, lest you be judged,” said Crane, a former parishioner of St. Julia Church in Weston, where Geoghan started working in 1984.
Geoghan was allegedly strangled Saturday by fellow inmate Joseph Druce at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. Druce is serving a life sentence from 1989 for murder, armed robbery and other counts. He was also charged in 2001 of sending a powdery substance from prison that was supposed to simulate anthrax, and was sentenced to an additional 37 months in prison last month after pleading guilty.
“He’s never going to hurt anybody again, and at the same time, he still had a lot of penance to do on earth,” said Michael Linscott, who claims he was abused by Geoghan from 1967 to 1972 at the St. Paul Parish in Hingham.
John King, who was allegedly abused by Ronald Paquin, a former priest who is currently serving 12 to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2002 to raping an altar boy, said all abuse victims must live “in their own prison.”
King said priests like Geoghan and Paquin needed rehabilitation, not death.
“I’ve been seeking counseling and I wanted the same for them,” King said.
Crane remembered Geoghan as an unassuming priest.
“Pretty much all I remember about him is that he had a really thick Boston accent,” said Crane, who now lives in Billerica but attended a memorial Mass Sunday for his mother at St. Julia’s, the church he attended while growing up.
Anthony Muzzi, whose son Anthony Jr. was allegedly abused by Geoghan, also took little solace.
“I wasn’t too happy to see what happened,” he said. “I know he ruined a lot of people’s lives, but what I say and what I have always said is that Cardinal (Bernard) Law was behind this. They should have never allowed Geoghan to go from church to church.”
Geoghan was transferred to Souza-Baranowski in April and was in protective custody the entire time, said Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the Department of Correction.
Inmates are assigned to that unit of the maximum security prison based on the notoriety of their offense and whether they have known enemies within the facility, she said.
“Inmates from a whole range of criminal convictions could be housed in a protective custody unit,” Nantel said.
She would not confirm whether Druce was also in protective custody, but she said that inmates in that unit typically only have contact with one other.
The Department of Correction has begun an internal investigation of the circumstances surrounding the strangling, she said. Authorities are interviewing both inmates and staff.
The Worcester District Attorney’s Office is also investigating Geoghan’s murder.
Geoghan was convicted of indecent assault and battery for improperly touching a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in 2002. In September of that year, the Boston Archdiocese settled with 86 Geoghan victims for $10 million, after pulling out of an earlier settlement of about $30 million. Geoghan was 68 at the time of his death.
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents both King and Linscott as well as more than 200 other alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergymen, said victims he represents did not wish for Geoghan’s fate.
“Many victims are disappointed and they wish Father John Geoghan had time to be in prison to reflect,” Garabedian said.
AP-ES-08-24-03 1718EDT
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