John Geoghan

John J. Geoghan; (June 4, 1935 to August 23, 2003) was an American Roman Catholic priest who had sex with boys while he was assigned to parishes in the Boston, Massachusetts. He was reassigned several times to parish posts involving children, including after attempted treatment for pedophilia. Geoghan was finally convicted of sexual abuse, laicized, and sentenced in 2002 to nine to ten years in Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison. Less than a year later, he was murdered there by Joseph Druce, an inmate who is serving a life sentence.

The Murder of John Geoghan

On August 23, 2003, while in protective custody at the maximum-security prison, Geoghan was strangled and stomped to death in his cell by inmate Joseph Druce. The latter was a self-described white supremacist serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole for killing a man who allegedly made sexual advances toward him. He was said to have planned the murder of Geoghan for more than a month, considering him a "prize." When John Geoghan's cell door locked, Druce jimmied it shut by jamming a paperback book into its upper track and a pair of nail clippers into the lower track. The ability to jam cell doors at SBCC from the inside is the result of a design defect, and has been known to staff and prisoners alike since shortly after the prison opened. He then took a sock he had inside his shirt, wrapped it around Geoghan's neck, and strangled him until he lost consciousness. Then, while Geoghan was on the floor, Druce repeatedly jumped onto him from the bed, breaking all of his ribs and crushing the old man's chest.

The press raised questions about prison officials' judgment in placing these two men in the same unit for protective custody. In addition, they had been warned by an inmate that Druce had something planned against Geoghan.

Certain guards in the MCI-Concord protective custody unit (in Geoghan's case, two), who hated him because of the nature of his crime, because he was an educated man, because he had lived a privileged life as a priest, and because he came into prison with naive expectations of being afforded basic human dignity, took it upon themselves to break him. When they did not succeed in breaking him they decided to ensure that he would be transferred to maximum security where he would room with the wolves. This was accomplished by loading the quiet old man, who spent most of his time praying, reading, or playing cards, with false, serious disciplinary reports, and then using that bogus "disciplinary history" to manipulate his classification to maximum security. The process in Geoghan's case, however, was so blatant that substantial arm-twisting was necessary among prison officials before the old man was sent to his death.

The administrative panel concluded that Geoghan had been physically assaulted by a guard at MCI-Concord on at least one occasion following a visit from a priest, that he had "come into contact" with another guard at MCI-Concord following a visit from his sister, and that someone, probably another prisoner, had placed feces in Geoghan's cell at MCI-Concord on a third occasion. It also found that the system for investigation of prisoner complaints against staff within the Department of Correction is "sporadic and cavalier," with no mechanism for central office review of determinations made at the individual prison level. It found that there is no way for superintendents, much less the central DOC headquarters, to share such misconduct reports or their outcomes as prisoners or staff members are transferred from prison to prison. The administrative panel found that the investigations of Geoghan's complaints against guards who harassed or assaulted him were "incomplete at best" and that Geoghan had received additional disciplinary reports for "lying" as a result of filing his complaints. The panel found that John Geoghan, a quiet old man, received a total of fifteen disciplinary reports during his incarceration in the protective custody unit at MCI-Concord, that this represented more disciplinary reports than were received by any other man in the unit during the time period that he was confined there, that eight of those reports were written by the same guard, one Cosmo Bisazza, and that Geoghan was the recipient of forty percent of all the disciplinary reports written by Bisazza against prisoners in the protective custody unit during the months in question.

The panel found that Sergeant Sheridan, one of the disciplinary hearing officers for MCI-Concord, had spoken to Bisazza about the disciplinary reports he had written against Geoghan. Sheridan told the investigators that he thought that the disciplinary reports written against Geoghan were either minor in nature, bad reports, or just "flat crap." He described Geoghan as a little old man who didn't bother anyone. The panel found that disciplinary reports written against Geoghan at MCI-Concord were "seldom in compliance with post orders." When the disciplinary hearing officers at MCI-Concord learned that Geoghan was to be transferred to SBCC, a different hearing officer, Steve Lacrosse, called the prison's Director of Classification and told her not to "blame the d-board, you do it on your own, but don't blame it on Inmate Geoghan being a discipline problem."

The panel also found that the classification process employed on John Geoghan was "marked by highly irregular behavior" on the part of three senior officials at MCI-Concord. On February 20, 2003, Geoghan had received a unanimous vote of the classification board to remain at MCI-Concord. On each of the following two days he was issued a trivial d-report. The first was for an out-of-order hot pot and the second report was for "insolence," issued when he complained about the first report. He pled guilty to each, each was reduced to a minor infraction and he was sanctioned with a month's loss of canteen. "Between February 20 and 24, 2003, several two-party conversations about Inmate Geoghan's status occurred between three senior officials at MCI Concord.... Superintendent Grant inquired of Director of Classification DiNardo if she had acted on the Classification Board's recommendation per her role as the Superintendent's Designee in reviewing the Classification Board's recommendation [that Geoghan remain where he was]. Superintendent Grant expressed to Deputy Superintendent for Classification Anderson, his desire to transfer Inmate Geoghan to the SHU at SBCC. Director of Classification DiNardo told Deputy Superintendent for Classification Anderson, that she would not reverse the recommendation of the Classification Board and that Deputy Superintendent Anderson would have to reverse it if it were to be reversed, to which Deputy Superintendent Anderson replied that he had already assumed the role of "Superintendent's Designee" and reversed the Board's recommendation." (Emphasis added.) "In reversing the Classification Board's recommendation," says the report, "Deputy Superintendent Anderson did not seek out or consult with any members of the Classification Board."

On February 28, 2003, John Geoghan appealed Anderson's recommendation to send him to SBCC, pointing out the trivial nature of the two disciplinary reports at issue. The appeal was routed to the Superintendent's Designee: Deputy Superintendent Anderson. Not surprisingly, Anderson denied this appeal of his own decision. Geoghan was sent to SBCC on April 1.

Geoghan was brutally murdered because the guards at the prison hated him for being a pedophile. The prison officials made it happen on purpose. They also leaked a youtube video of the guards trying to pry open the door after the murder. The video is still available on youtube. Prison officials wanted to make sure everyone got to see the gruesome details. But that wasn't enough for them. In 2015, photos of Geoghan's mutilated corpse showed up online. Of course, "The Department of Corrections said it is investigating the photos." "Who? Us? We have no idea?"

This story shines light on how far away we are from a civilized society. When it comes to pedosteria, society breaks down and everyone's a cave man. If you're in prison for pedophilia in the USA the guards might have you executed. This story proves that fact. It's probably just a matter of time before the same thing happens to Jerry Sandusky.