•  CASE STUDIES
   by Leon Podles
• Philip Anthony Magaldi
• Peter Kramer
• Donald Matthew Osgood
• Canon N.
• Clive Lynn
• Edward Donelan
  
•  MURDER CASE STUDIES
   by Leon Podles
• Joseph J. Pilger
• Michael Mack
• John Patrick Kerrigan
• Alfred J. Kunz
• Reynaldo Rivera
• Irene Garza
• Patrick Ryan
• John J. Geoghan
• Ryan Erickson

The Murder of Rev. John J. Geoghan

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In the mid-1980s Geoghan spent a lot of time at the Boys’ and Girls’ Club in Waltham. There he met Mark Keane, with whom he talked about his swimming, and then according to Keane, Geoghan pushed him under a staircase and performed oral sex on him.62Thomas Farragher, “Settlement doesn’t heal victims’ hearts,” Boston Globe, September 20, 2002. More allegations were made to the Archdiocese and Bishop Daily began to be worried. The number of victim was growing, and the evil was spreading. In 1989 the archdiocese was told that a “kid…was practicing fellatio on his three-year-old brother. Kid said Father [Geoghan] did it.”63Memo from Rev. Brian M. Flatley to File, July 11, 1996.

 

Dr. Brennan was not sanguine about Geoghan’s state in April 1989. He told Bishop Daily “You better clip his wings before there is an explosion…You can’t afford to have him in a parish.”64 Memo from Bishop Banks, April 28, 1989; Michael Rezendes, “Memos Offer Split View of Priest,” Boston Globe, January 24, 2002. Law sent Geoghan to St. Luke’s in Suitland, Maryland, for an evaluation. The evaluation was: that Geoghan had “homosexual pedophilia.”65See Note 3 above; Michael Rezendes and Globe Staff, “Church Allowed Abuse by Priest for Years,” Boston Globe, January 6, 2002. Auxiliary Bishop Banks told Geoghan he had to leave the ministry, but instead Geoghan was put on sick leave, and in August 1989 Law sent Geoghan to the Institute for Living in Hartford, Connecticut. There Dr. Robert Swords and Dr. Vincent Stephens said that tests indicated that Geoghan “showed an immature and impulsive nature” and “could be a high risk taker.” Their diagnosis was “atypical pedophilia, in remission,” and “mixed personality disorder with obsessive-compulsive, histrionic, and narcissistic features” but that the abuse was limited to three years (1975-79) and “had a playful childlike quality to it.”66Discharge Summary, Reverend John J. Geoghan, The Institute for Living, November 4, 1989, signed Dr. Robert F. Swords and Dr. Vincent Stephens; Michael Rezendes, “Memos Offer Split View of Priest,” Boston Globe, January 24, 2002. Geoghan had lied to them about the extent of the abuse, and the Archdiocese had not told the Institute everything that was in its records. Even after the archdiocese had withheld pertinent information for the Institute and therefore allowed Geoghan to get away with his lies, the diagnosis was still not what Bishop Banks expected to hear. Banks wrote to the doctors that he was “disappointed and disturbed by the report,” because he had been assured orally that “it would be all right to reassign Father Geoghan to pastoral ministry and that he would not present a risk for the parishioners whom he would serve.”67Letter from Most Rev. Robert J. Banks to Dr. Vincent J. Stephens, November 30, 1989. Robert Swords gave Banks a revised prognosis that would allow Banks to assign Geoghan to a parish: “We judge Father Geoghan to be clinically quite safe to resume his pastoral ministry,”68Letter from Dr. Robert F. Swords to Most Rev. Robert Banks, December 13, 1989. and added Geoghan was “fit for pastoral work in general including children.”69Letter from Robert Swords to Bishop Banks, December 12, 1990. Michael Rezendes, “Memos Offer Split View of Priest,” Boston Globe, January 24, 2002. In December 1990 Dr. John Brennan changed his opinion of Geoghan and this time was upbeat. He wrote to Bishop Banks: “There is no psychiatric contraindication to Fr. Geoghan’s pastoral work at this time.”70Letter from Dr. John H. Brennan to Most Rev. Robert J. Banks, December 7, 1990; Betrayal: The Crisis of the Catholic Church, p. 223. Law sent Geoghan back to the boys of St. Julia’s.

 

More complaints came in to the archdiocesan chancery, and Cardinal Law removed Geoghan from parish work in January 1993 and put him in the Office of Senior Priest, where he had no effective supervision.71Memo from Father Miceli to File, December 2, 1994. Yet more complaints came to the archdiocese.72A single mother of four young boys in Waltham said that Geoghan befriended the family and molested the boys. Until November 1994 he called them and, they said, talked about “bad” things, including “the idea of the boys having  sex with their mother. The mother herself had been the victim of sexual abuse. (Memo from S. Rita McCarthy to Rev. Brian M. Flatley, December 30, 1994; David Weber, “Mom Sues Priest for Alleged Sexual Abuse of Sons,” Boston Herald, July 11, 1996) St Luke’s again evaluated Geoghan in January 1995, and the diagnosis was the worst yet: “It is our clinical judgment that Father Geoghan has a longstanding and continuing problem with sexual attraction to prepubescent males. His recognition of the problem and his insight into it is limited.”73Sacha Pfeiffer, “Geoghan Preferred Preying on Poor Children,” Boston Globe, January 7, 2002. Law sent Geoghan to an Ontario treatment center, Southdown, which was also guarded in its prognosis of Geoghan.74Letter to Rev. Bill Murphy from Dr. Samuel F. Mikhail, January 2, 1997. But Dr. Edward Messner, who was treating Geoghan, insisted that Geoghan was “not a sexually dangerous person.”75Letter from Edward Messner to Timothy O’Neill, March 15, 1996.

 

In 1995, Geoghan, facing civil suits from his victims, sold to his sister his interest in the houses he had inherited from his mother, houses worth about $1 million – for $1. He thereby made himself judgment-proof and indigent. His defense was therefore paid by the state of Massachusetts and by the taxes paid by the families of the boys he had molested.76Sacha Pfeiffer and Matt Carroll, “Geoghan Shifted Real Estate to Trust,” Boston Globe, January 14, 2002. He wallowed in self-pity, writing to Rev. William Murphy, “I have been falsely accused and feel alienated from my ministry and fellowship with my brother priests. I cannot believe that one would be considered guilty on an accusation based on speculation but I have experienced this. Where is the justice or due process?....I will do all in my power to maintain my innocence.”77Letter from John J. Geoghan, to Monsignor Murphy, November 17, 1995; Betrayal: The Crisis of the Catholic Church, p. 225. Geoghan seems to have forgotten that in 1980 he had admitted abusing the Dussourd boys.

 

After news stories about the lawsuits against Geoghan started appearing in 1996, the archdiocese decided to hold meetings in parishes.  At the July 1996 meeting at St. Julia’s in Waltham, “there was a unanymous [sic] outpouring of support for Fr. Geoghan.” The parishioners had observed “Fr. Geoghan’s wonderful rapport with children.” The parishioners were furious that the archdiocese had even mentioned the fact that Geoghan was being sued, that the archdiocese had “railroaded” Geoghan to Canada, and that the archdiocese had “violated” Geoghan’s “civil rights.” The parishioners felt “hurt and anger against the complainants.” One parishioner “blames the newspapers for being irresponsible in publishing this story.” Another parishioner suggested contacting the owner of the Boston Herald, since he was a parishioner at St. Julia’s “to put a stop to the damaging publicity.” The representatives of the archdiocese who were present at this meeting noted that “it would have been ‘social suicide’ for someone to ask questions that might have challenged Fr. Geoghan’s innocence.”78 “Questions / Comments / Reflections, Meeting held Monday, July 15, 1996, St. Julia Parish, Weston, MA” The archdiocese, however, knew that Geoghan had admitted to several cases of abuse.

 

Against the advice of his assistants, at the end of 1996 Law granted Geoghan early retirement, and wrote to him, “Yours has been an effective life of ministry, sadly impaired by illness. On behalf of those who you served well, and in my own name, I would like to thank you.”79Jules Crittenden, “Records Depict Lonely, Immature, and Self-deluded Priest,” Boston Herald, January 27, 2002. Law thanked a man who had, his victims claimed, molested over 150 children, poisoned scores of
families, destroyed people’s faith, and who would cost the Archdiocese of Boston $30 million and Law his job. Even after his forced retirement Geoghan continued to function as a priest, which allowed him to pursue his other interests. He agreed to baptize a child; the infant’s brother served as altar boy. Before the baptism, the boy claims, Geoghan helped him put on a pair of dress pants and masturbated him while pretending to help with the zipper.80Marie Szaniszlo, “First Geoghan Trial to Begin,” Boston Herald, January 13, 2002.

 

In 1997 the Archdiocese of Boston found Geoghan’s continued presence in the state a source of legal complications and tried to get him out of the state. Rev. William Murphy wrote in a memo for Geoghan’s file: “I spoke to Father Geoghan today regarding the proposal he make a visit to Alma, Michigan, and the Sisters of Mercy. Father Geoghan has concluded that he lacks sufficient emotional strength for a move to Michigan.”81Memo from Rev. William F. Murphy to Most Rev. William Murphy, February 18, 1997; Stephen Kurkjian and Sacha Pfeiffer, “Police Probed Priest on Sex Abuse as Early as 1986,” Boston Globe, January 25, 2002. 

 

As the law closed in on Geoghan, the Archdiocese of Boston began reconsidering its thirty-year support for him. Rev. Brian M. Flatley handled the Geoghan case and wrote to Law, who was sympathetic to Geoghan’s request not to be sent to a residential treatment center, that Geoghan “was not totally honest” and Flatley was not convinced that Geoghan was “not lying again” when he denied molesting yet another group of boys.82Globe Spotlight Team, “Documents show church long supported Geoghan,” Boston Globe, January 24, 2002. It was beginning to dawn on Flatley that Geoghan, in addition to being an admitted pedophile, was not always telling the truth.83Memo from Rev. Brian J. Flatley to File:  “it has been a shock to me that priests have lied to me.” Flatley in a Memo to Cardinal Law wrote: “Father Geoghan is clever. He withheld information from each assessing group, only to admit a little more to the next tester. He is a real danger. I think he needs to be in residential care” (June 4, 1996).

 

On February 17, 1998, the Vatican, that is, Pope John Paul II, having reviewed Geoghan’s dossier and expressing no concern for what had happened to his victims, removed Geoghan from the priesthood.84“Notice of Geoghan’s Dismissal from Priesthood,” Boston Globe, May 8, 1998.

 

On January 18, 2002, Geoghan was found guilty of indecently touching a ten-year-old boy. It was one of his lesser offenses, but it was one that the Archdiocese of Boston had not managed to conceal until the statute of limitations protected Geoghan from prosecution. The boy at the Waltham Boys’ and Girls’ Club claimed: “He was trying to teach himself to dive from the deep end of the swimming pool, he said, when a familiar man asked if he wanted help. ‘Yes,’ answered the boy, and he dove some more, coached by the priest he had seen a few times around his Waltham housing project. But about 15 minutes later, as he floated in the pool near the priest, the boy was startled by an unexpected touch: a hand that slid up his leg, beneath his bathing suit, and squeezed his buttocks.”85Kathleen Burge, “Man testifies Geoghan fondled him,” Boston Globe, January 17, 2002.

 

Judge Sandra Hamlin gave Geoghan the maximum sentence, ten years, because “this defendant hid behind his (priest’s) collar and under the sanctity of the Roman Catholic Church engaged in what this court can only describe as depraved and reprehensible behavior.”86Marie Szaniszlo, “Geoghan sentenced to 9-10 years,” Boston Herald, February 22, 2002. Geoghan was on the way to prison. But not all of his victims survived to see this vindication.

 

The Greenlaw family were friends of Geoghan’s. John Brian Greenlaw started talking about suicide when he was seven years old; when he was seventeen his mother found him hanging in a noose and cut him down; he barely survived that episode. In May 2002 at age thirty-three he succeeded in killing himself with an overdose of alcohol and drugs. Only then, when she found his letters, did his mother discover the source of his self-destructiveness. He had written “How Father Geoghan had molested him, raped him in a car while going for ice cream, told my son he ‘loved’ him more than his mother ever could. In one letter Brian said Geoghan wanted him to move out of his house and into the rectory.”87Tom Mashberg, “Son’s Suicide Leaves a Void in Mom’s Life,” Boston Herald, September 20, 2002. She said that her son felt that God had raped him.88Thomas Farragher, “Settlement Doesn’t Heal Victims’ Hearts,” Boston Globe, September 20, 2002.

 

Patrick McSorley lived to receive financial compensation from the Archdiocese of Boston for his abuse by Geoghan, but he said that “the money is not going to change my life. My heart is always going to be broken because of this.”89Thomas Farragher, “Settlement Doesn’t Heal Victims’ Hearts,” Boston Globe, September 20, 2002. McSorley died of a drug overdose on February 23, 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes

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