Idaho priest serving 25 years for child porn dies in prison

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - A Roman Catholic priest who possessed more than 2,500 images of what investigators called the most disturbing child pornography they had ever seen has died in prison.

Father W. Thomas Faucher, 75, died Thursday norming at the Idaho State Correctional Institution, the Idaho Department of Correction said.

Faucher was found unresponsive in the facility's medical unit, and life-saving attempts failed, department spokesman Jeff Ray told KTVB-TV. Ray said the death appeared to be due to natural causes.

Faucher was about two years into a 25-year prison sentence without parole.

Faucher in 2018 pleaded guilty to five felonies, including possessing and distributing child pornography and a drug charge.

During a sentencing hearing, Judge Jason Scott said Faucher fantasized about raping and killing young children, favored child pornography that depicted extreme violence and claimed in online chats to have mixed his own bodily fluids into the communion wine at his church.

The Vatican defrocked Faucher last year.