Violent History Plagues Souza-baranowski Correctional Center Where Aaron Hernandez Killed Himself
By Kristin LaFratta
The super maximum security prison where Aaron Hernandez took his life in the quiet of night is a rough place -- even for a prison. The Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center holds the worst of the worst. And it has a history of violence since it opened 19 years ago, named after two corrections officers who were killed by inmates. And while most prisons are far from immune to fighting between inmates, the high-tech facility at the border of Lancaster and Shirley and just north of Route 2 seems particularly troubled by the irrepressible felons it collects. Perhaps the prison's name forebode the violence that was to come. In July of 1972, James Souza, 29 and Alfred Baranowski, 54, were shot by an inmate whose wife had smuggled in handguns into what was then the Norfolk Prison Colony. Forty-five years later, the state prison named in their honor has seen attacks on its staff, suicides, fighting between inmates and an anarchic riot that could only be stopped by an emergency back-up unit. The prison on Harvard Road has housed some notable figures, including Aaron Hernandez, Red Sox commentator Jerry Remy's son and convicted murderer Jared Remy and a defrocked Catholic priest. John Geoghan, a sexual abuser and former Catholic priest, was murdered in the prison in 2002. Geoghan was strangled and stomped to death by Joseph Druce, who was reportedly in prison for murdering a man who had made sexual advances toward him. Geoghan had been sentenced to Souza-Baranowski in 2002 on charges of sexual abuse, after it was uncovered that he had molested many young boys in parishes around Boston. Some questioned why, considering their sentences, Geoghan and Druce were placed in the same protective-custody unit at the high-security facility. Several suicides have been reported at the prison, though Hernandez's is believed to be the first to hang himself using a bed sheet. Keith Luke, a self-described Neo-Nazi, killed himself in the prison in 2014 after a previous suicide attempt. Luke was serving two life sentences at Souza-Baranowski after he was convicted of murdering two people and raping and wounding another, all three victims of Cape Verdean descent. Other deaths have happened over the course of the facility's operations in the past two decades. In August 2014, several men beat a fellow 72-year-old inmate to death at the Shirley prison. Prisoners Allan Erazo and Chad Connors were later found guilty of murdering William Sires, beating him so badly that his face could not be recognized. In June 2012, seven prison staff members suffered injuries after an inmate attacked a guard with some kind of weapon, and other inmates followed suit. The prison was placed on a lockdown following the attack. Prior the death of Hernandez, what would likely pop up in an online search of the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center would be the events on Jan. 9, 2017. A fight between two gang members that Monday evening spiraled into 46 prisoners rioting in a housing unit for nearly three hours. Video of the event showed inmates breaking objects including sprinklers, camera systems and a computer. The prisoners fashioned weapons out of furniture and a fire extinguisher with an intention to harm the prison staff. Corrections officers had to leave the area and call for a special operations unit, who used pepper spray to put an end to the chaos. Inmates were returned to their cells after being patted down for weapons and no injuries were reported in the end. Many, including State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, have called for an investigation into worker practices at the prison, heralded as a high-tech facility that cost more than a hundred million dollars to build. And while his suicide is still shocking to the many who followed the rise and demise of his football career, the death of Aaron Hernandez is now one in a string of disturbing losses at the isolated prison on Harvard Road. Contact: kristin.lafratta@masslive.com
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