BOSTON -- The prison murder of defrocked pedophile priest John Geoghan had been planned for more than a month and was motivated by a "longstanding hate", said Worcester County District Attorney John Conte Monday.

State officials have launched a two-pronged investigation into Geoghan's weekend prison murder, one a homicide probe headed by Conte, the other a state review of prison policies and procedures.

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Geoghan, 68, was serving a 10-year sentence for assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy. Conte said the former Catholic priest was strangled and beaten by another inmate on Saturday during a brief 7-to-8 minute interval when inmates' cell doors were opened so they could return food trays to a common area.

Conte said the cell doors of Geoghan and convicted murderer Joseph Druce were opened at 11:48 a.m. Saturday and closed at 11:52 a.m.

During that time, Conte said, Druce jammed Geoghan's cell door open with a book, nail clipper and toothbrush. He said the book had actually been pre-cut to fit the cell door track.

Conte said Druce tied Geoghan's hands behind his back with a T-shirt, then used pre-stretched socks to create a ligature and strangle the older inmate, also using a shoe and a pillowcase. Druce also had a razor in his pocket, Conte said, which the inmate allegedly said he planned to use.

Another inmate noticed movement in the cell and a guard was notified, but had difficulty opening the jammed cell door. A nurse was called and Geoghan was taken to Leominster Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1:17 p.m.

Conte said Druce admitted to the killing and has been cooperative if not "proud" of the murder, looking at Geoghan as a "prize."

"He looked upon Father Geoghan as a prize," Conte said. "There's no question he had been planning it for well over a month."

Druce "has a long-standing phobia, it appears, toward homosexuals of any kind," Conte said. "He is filled with long-standing hate."

Conte said staffing was considered "normal" for that time of day, but officials will now review whether it was adequate. He said there are more than 300 cameras recording activity within the prison and film is being reviewed. The district attorney said his investigation will look into whether Druce had any accomplices, although initial investigation indicates Druce acted alone.

NewsCenter 5's Jack Harper reported that officials were meeting at the prison guard's union headquarters in Dorchester Monday morning, and Gov. Mitt Romney and the state's public safety secretary also met to determine how an inmate in protective custody could be killed by another inmate.

Public Safety Secretary Ed Flynn said Monday afternoon that Gov. Romney had established a task force to investigate the Geoghan murder and determine what policy changes may need to be made. The task force is being led by the State Police and will include an investigator from the state Department of Corrections and a representative from the American Corrections Association.

Prison guard union officials earlier revealed details of the slaying.

Druce, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, was accused of killing Geoghan inside the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass. Guards union authorities told newspapers that Geoghan was bound, gagged, strangled and stomped in the attack.

For some alleged victims, there were mixed reactions.

"Yeah, he's dead and he'll never hurt anybody again, but at the same time all the people he hurt are going to be in their own prison until they're buried," said Michael Linscott.

The frail, elderly priest was no match for Druce, 37, a self-proclaimed white supremacist convicted of strangling a 51-year-old Gloucester, Mass., man to death in 1988 because he believed that man was a homosexual. Druce's original name was Darrin Smiledge. He was known as a Nazi sympathizer who admitted sending anthrax hoax letters to lawyers with Jewish-sounding names following the 911 terrorist attacks. His father told the Boston Herald Druce was sexually abused by older men as a child.

A Worcester County grand jury will take up the Geoghan murder case in September. An autopsy performed in Boston indicated that Geoghan died of strangulation and also suffered from broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Local criminologist Edith Flynn, a Northeastern University professor, told NewsCenter 5 that Geoghan's murder did not come as a surprise because convicted pedophiles are known as targets of other inmates in prisons. One of the reasons Geoghan was held in protective custody was because he was a pedophile, she said.

"I think what may have happened is really a failute to supervise and we need to look, for instance, at inmate-correctional officer staff ratios and I understand they're comparatively low in Massachusetts," she said.

Flynn said Geoghan's murder was probably preventable, adding that the defrocked priest should have been under 24-hour supervision. She said the prison system should review its inmate classification system and may need to revise its policy to ensure that inmates cannot get into other inmates cells.