Joseph Druce | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

State and local officials opened investigations today into the prison killing of John J. Geoghan, a former priest convicted of child molestation, saying the suspect, a self-proclaimed homophobe, had been planning the killing for more than a month.

As officials began examining things like staffing levels and protective custody procedures at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center where Mr. Geoghan was murdered on Saturday, a lawyer familiar with the case said that another prisoner had tried to warn guards that the suspect, Joseph L. Druce, planned to kill Mr. Geoghan.

The lawyer, Jim Pingeon, director of litigation for Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, a prisoners' rights group, did not give details of when the inmate approached the guards but said they had taken no action. Mr. Pingeon said the inmate had also told him that Mr. Druce was standing outside Mr. Geoghan's cell door just before it was to be closed after the lunch break on Saturday, a violation of prison regulations.

John J. Conte, the Worcester district attorney who will be prosecuting the case, said at a news conference this afternoon that there was only one guard on duty at the time and that inmates from all 22 individual cells had been allowed out just before the incident. A second guard who should have been on duty was away helping a nurse give medication to an inmate, Mr. Conte said.

''This seems like something that shouldn't happen,'' Mr. Conte said of the number of guards and the prisoners being out of their cells.

Prison experts said officials appeared to have made a fundamental error in placing a vulnerable inmate like Mr. Geoghan, 68, in the same protective custody unit as Mr. Druce. Mr. Druce, 37, is serving a life sentence without parole for strangling a 51-year-old man in 1988 who he believed was gay.

''It's pretty unusual, pretty strange, to put people from such backgrounds together in protective custody,'' said Chase Riveland, a former secretary of corrections in both Washington and Colorado and now a prison consultant. ''I can't think of a logical reason for it.''

Gov. Mitt Romney convened a three-person task force to review prison policies.

Edward A. Flynn, the Massachusetts secretary of public safety, who oversees the state Department of Correction, said, ''We must find out why and what lessons may be learned.''

Mr. Flynn said that the prison had 300 surveillance cameras and that tapes from them were being reviewed.

Mr. Geoghan, who was convicted in January 2002 of groping a 10-year-old boy, was in protective custody because he had complained that he felt threatened, Mr. Flynn said.

Mr. Pingeon, the lawyer, said Mr. Geoghan had told him guards and other inmates had defecated and urinated on his bed when he was in the protective custody unit at another prison at Concord before being transferred to Souza-Baranowski.

''What isn't clear,'' Mr. Pingeon said, ''is whether there was any complicity by the guards'' at the new prison.

David Shaw, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety, said the investigation would ''look into any and all information.'' The corrections officers union did not return calls tonight seeking a reaction to Mr. Pingeon's comments.

Mr. Pingeon said the inmate who had observed Mr. Druce standing outside Mr. Geoghan's cell said that when another prisoner alerted the guard to the altercation several guards came running.

State prison guards and Mr. Conte, the district attorney, questioned the low level of staffing in the protective custody unit at the time of the killing. The Massachusetts prison guards' union has complained about staff reductions, as the state prison budget has been cut in recent months, like prison budgets in virtually every state.

Mr. Flynn said prison staffing was normal at the time of the killing. ''Whether or not normal staffing is appropriate or absolutely preventative is something we're going to have to take a look at,'' he said.

Mr. Conte said Mr. Druce had prevented guards in a control room from opening the door to Mr. Geoghan's cell electronically by jamming a book he had cut in two into the upper track of the door. He had disabled the bottom rail by putting a nail clipper and toothbrush in it, Mr. Conte said.

Mr. Druce used a T-shirt to tie Mr. Geoghan's hands behind his back then threw him on the floor, Mr. Conte said. Mr. Druce had also stretched socks to strangle Mr. Geoghan, and he used a shoe as a garrote.

Mr. Druce then jumped off the bed, stomping on Mr. Geoghan's chest, breaking his ribs and puncturing his lungs. An autopsy performed in Boston this morning by the state's chief medical examiner found that Mr. Geoghan had died of ''ligature strangulation and blunt chest trauma,'' Mr. Conte said.

Mr. Druce had a razor with him and Mr. Conte said that he had intended to ''do further harm'' to Mr. Geoghan. But Mr. Druce surrendered without a struggle and, Mr. Conte said, had given a long statement and been cooperating.

Mr. Conte said Mr. Druse seemed to have acted alone. But, Mr. Conte said, ''Our duty will be a very broad investigation to determine if this was intentional on the part of others.''

Asked whether Mr. Druce was proud of the killing, Mr. Conte said, ''Absolutely.'' He added, ''He looked upon Father Geoghan as a prize.''

Mr. Druce has not been charged, Mr. Conte said, because ''he is not going anywhere.'' He is serving a life sentence without parole.

Mr. Conte said he would present the case to a grand jury in September.

The investigation into the prison's procedures is likely to focus on how the state deals with protective custody. As Mr. Flynn said today, both Mr. Geoghan and Mr. Druce had requested protected status because of fears about other inmates.

Many other states would separate elderly child molesters, who are easy targets, from predatory inmates like Mr. Druce, Mr. Riveland said. But Massachusetts allows them into the same protective custody units. Mr. Flynn noted that Mr. Geoghan had not complained about Mr. Druce.

The danger of mixing these two kinds of inmates in the same unit has been compounded by a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which found that inmates in protective custody had not committed any infractions and were entitled to all privileges of regular inmates.

In practice, experts said, this means inmates in protective custody are allowed out of their cells into a common room to watch television or make phone calls and cannot be confined in solitary.

Mr. Druce was arrested for the murder of George J. Rollo by strangling and beating him to death, much the same way Mr. Geoghan was killed.

Joseph Aiello, now a lieutenant with the Gloucester, Mass., police department, arrested Mr. Druce after he killed Mr. Rollo.

''He's just a savage person,'' the officer said. ''After giving him the beating of his life he tied him up and threw him in the trunk of his car. All the way Mr. Rollo was pleading for his life.''

How Mr. Geoghan's murder will affect the nearly 150 people he was accused of molesting -- and the negotiations to settle lawsuits by 542 victims of sexual abuse by Boston-area priests -- is unclear.

Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer who represents Mr. Geoghan's victims, said his death would not set back their continued lawsuits against the Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese and some of its senior leaders in the 1980's and 1990's, including former Cardinal Bernard F. Law.

''I have such an incredible amount of data and information that I feel confident I can prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the supervisors were negligent in supervising John J. Geoghan,'' Mr. Garabedian said.

But Seth Taube, a Newark lawyer who has defended Catholic schools and religious orders in sexual-abuse suits, said Mr. Geoghan's death had deprived the plaintiffs of a witness.

It is also unclear whether the state will take any further action to protect other former priests serving time in Massachusetts prisons. They include James Porter, who was charged with molesting more than 100 children in the Fall River diocese. Mr. Flynn said ''a few'' former priests were in with regular inmates, while at least one was in protective custody.

Alleged Geoghan killer led troubled life, records show

Addiction, theft prefaced murder

By John McElhenny - The Boston Globe

8/26/2003

Joseph L. Druce, while being interviewed by a prison psychiatrist in 1989, declared that he expected to "go to Satan" and await the arrival of his enemies, and announced, "I'll die before I serve a life sentence!"

A more detailed picture began to emerge yesterday of Druce, a onetime truck driver and mechanic who authorities say beat and strangled John J. Geoghan at a maximum-security state prison Saturday.

Court records obtained by the Associated Press said that Druce had been under various forms of psychiatric treatment since about age 5 and had taken medication for his mental condition until his middle teens. By then, Druce had become addicted to various drugs, the records showed.

Druce was born Darrin Smiledge in Danvers in 1965, the son of a sheet metal worker. He finished the 10th grade before taking jobs as a mechanic and truck driver, according to court records. He changed his name in 1999, while in prison.

His criminal career began soon after he left high school. He was charged with more than two dozen crimes, from drug possession to larceny to forgery. It was in 1988 in Gloucester that Druce's life of crime took a violent turn. Druce was hitchhiking with a friend in Gloucester when a man who drove a bus for the elderly picked them up.

According to testimony during the trial, once they had arrived in a secluded section of Gloucester, the driver, 51-year-old George Rollo, touched Druce in the groin, and Druce reacted violently, beating Rollo, tying him up, and throwing him in the trunk of Rollo's car.

After Rollo's beating, Druce and his friend picked up some beer and Druce drove the car to a parking lot near the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, where he strangled Rollo with a rope, the prosecutor said.

He was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. While Druce was in prison, a psychiatrist noted his rage in explicit detail.

"Angry, frustrated, blaming, remorseless, intense, determined man, believes in Satan, unafraid, laughing as he declares his intent to kill himself," the psychiatrist's notes said.

In a May 2001 letter to prison officials, Druce offered to provide information on the unsolved murders of two Massachusetts girls, Molly Bish and Holly Piirainen, in exchange for a commutation of his life sentence.

Worcester District Attorney John Conte said investigators looked into Druce's offer but found that it wasn't credible.

In 1999, Darrin Ernest Smiledge formally applied to change his name to Joseph Lee Druce, according to court records. In the space marked "reason for change," Smiledge wrote, "Saftey and enemy issue's, very important to change identity."

Druce's father, Dana Smiledge of Byfield, said Saturday that his son has had a longstanding animosity toward gay people, Jews, and African-Americans. Druce also pleaded guilty last year to mailing anthrax hoax letters to 39 lawyers around the country with Jewish-sounding names. Dana Smiledge said Saturday that Druce had also threatened to kill his family.

Efforts to reach Druce's former attorneys were unsuccessful yesterday.

J. Martin Richey, who defended him in the anthrax hoax case, did not return two calls yesterday. Martin Gideonse, who defended him in the 1988 murder case, died several years ago.