BishopAccountability.org
 
  Druce Lawyer, DA Seek Copies of Macabre Tape

By Michele McPhee
Boston Herald [Massachusetts]
August 30, 2005

Prosecutors and defense lawyers were flabbergasted yesterday to learn of an explosive prison video in which grandstanding killer Joseph L. Druce pantomimes the brutal 2003 murder of an infamous pedophile priest.

But a Department of Correction official said his agency does not have the video, images from which appeared in yesterday's Herald.

"We are looking into the matter of the tape being released," said DOC spokesman Paul Henderson.

Druce's defense attorney, John H. Lachance, and Worcester County District Attorney John J. Conte both said they would demand copies of the macabre video from the DOC.

Conte said he had not seen the tape, and asked DOC officials about it yesterday. "Our office has certainly not seen it," he said. "Basically, we just want to get this case to trial. That has been our purpose for quite a while now."

Druce, who is serving life in an unrelated case, is expected in court Thursday for a hearing in the murder of John J. Geoghan, the defrocked Weston pastor accused of abusing scores of young children. Lachance said yesterday he plans to file a motion today aimed at obtaining the Druce video, and would argue that motion at the hearing Thursday.

"I don't have that tape," he said. "All I have seen of that is what is in the newspaper."

Conte said a series of motions – including one filed in April by Lachance claiming his client could not get a fair trial because of incessant harassment by DOC officials – have slowed the case.

Lachance, who received a phone call from Druce yesterday, said "my client is very anxious."

"He has had threats made to him by DOC personnel, not the guards, but DOC personnel," he added, declining to be specific.

Referring to the new video, Lachance said, "There is no question that Druce was removed from Geoghan's cell after the incident. We have a tape of that." Lachance said there is also footage of Druce being treated at health services, but none of him acting out exactly how the murder unfolded.

The video reviewed by the Herald shows the tattooed, muscular Druce re-enacting what appears to be Geoghan's murder with something bordering on exhilaration.

He mimes using a shoe to help tighten a makeshift garrote around his victim's neck. The ghastly game of charades continues with Druce stepping onto a cot and leaping onto the prone body of his victim.

Druce is accused of viciously slaughtering Geoghan when both men were jailed at the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley.

Druce, now 40, was serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for the 1987 murder of George Rollo, 51, of Gloucester, who Druce contended made a sexual advance after picking up Druce, who was hitchhiking.

Geoghan, 68, was serving a nine- to 10-year sentence for molesting a 10-year-old boy, although more than 100 people accused the former priest of sexual abuse.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.