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Woman Who Raised Alarm About Pedophile Priest John Geoghan Dies

BOSTON (AP) — A Boston woman who was one of the first people to raise the alarm about a sexually abusive Roman Catholic priest has died.

Maryetta Dussourd was 74.

She died of cancer on May 24, according to her obituary.

The Mann & Rodgers Funeral Home, which is handling arrangements, confirmed the death.

Dussourd told The Boston Globe for a 2002 story that she was stunned when she learned the Rev. John Geoghan was fondling her three sons as well as her niece's four sons in the late 1970s.

She said she was warned by church officials to keep quiet and told not to sue. Other parishioners shunned her.

Maryetta Dussourd and Mark Keane
Maryetta Dussourd and her son Mark Keane in Cambridge, January 18, 2002. (Photo credit JESSICA RINALDI/AFP/Getty Images)

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called Dussourd "a hero, plain and simple."

Geoghan was killed in prison by another inmate in 2003.

(© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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