They Let Him Off Easy

I bet there’s going to be a line of people waiting to dance on this guy’s grave :

John J. Geoghan, the former priest and convicted child molester killed in a Massachusetts prison Saturday, was followed into his cell just after lunch by a fellow inmate who bound and gagged him before strangling him with a bed sheet, according to a union representative for prison guards.

The attacker, whom authorities identified as Joseph L. Druce, jammed the electronically operated cell door to prevent guards from opening it. He tied Geoghan’s hands behind his back with a sheet and gagged him. He then repeatedly jumped from the bed in the cell onto Geoghan’s motionless body and beat the defrocked priest with his fists.

I don’t like the idea of celebrating anyone’s death, but considering that this guy raped one hundred and fifty kids, it’s hard to not think that he deserved this. In a perfect world, this asshole wouldn’t have been allowed to have a second victim, but I guess this is what you get with a combination of children too scared to come forward and a priesthood that likes to protect its own. I just don’t know why every Catholic official that helped cover this stuff up wasn’t sitting in jail with him. If this were a bank robbery, would they be letting all the getaway drivers off this easily?


posted by greg on August 25, 2003 @ 1:38 pm

5 comments

  1. I really, really don’t like the idea of anyone condoning jailhouse murders.

    If he deserved more — if he deserved execution — then it should have been addressed via the justice system. Murder is murder, and whether or not he “deserved it,” we can’t praise lynchings, even if conducted by just one guy.

    –Kynn

    Comment by Kynn Bartlett — August 25, 2003 @ 3:10 pm

  2. You’re right there. There’s a notion that violent crimes that occur in jail are somehow acceptable. Of course this comes from the mistaken impression by the public and media that everyone in jail is equally guilty and deserving of being victimized. The best example of this is how (rightly) horrified the public is by rape “on the outside” when rape in prison is considered a hilarious joke.

    Comment by greg — August 25, 2003 @ 3:17 pm

  3. raping a child is possibly the worst thing anyone could ever do… but celbratiing this guys death is just as disgusting as all the people who celebrated the death of the Hussein Bros.

    even the victims of this pedophile have made statements that they didn’t wish death on him. who are we to judge and celebrate this man’s death if the children he raped can forgive him.

    Comment by tom — August 25, 2003 @ 3:20 pm

  4. PS: It’s also likely that the guy killed Geoghan not because he was a pedophile, but because he was gay. His killer was a racist terrorist convicted of murdering another gay man — see http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030825_1136.html for example.

    Many gays and (especially) transsexuals are killed or abused in the American prison system.

    Comment by Kynn Bartlett — August 25, 2003 @ 3:22 pm

  5. It should be pointed out that the “electronic door” was jammed with “paperback books.” As a matter of fact, I rather suspect the prison guards of complicity in his murder. Setting one sick sociopath against another is a throwback to ancient Rome. Point being, I think he should have served out his sentence with just the regular degredations of prison life, such as 23-hour lock downs, rather than being bound, gagged and strangled, as he so richly deserved to be…obviously, I’m a little conflicted about this…

    Comment by JoeW — August 28, 2003 @ 12:36 pm

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