TEXAS
New York Daily News
BY STEPHEN WILLIAMS / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2013
The lifeless body of a beautiful 25-year-old woman was found near a church in McAllen, Texas, more than 50 years ago, but the gruesome homicide and the motive -a Catholic priest was a prime suspect – still confounds the victim’s family.
They are obsessed with bringing Irene Garza’s killer to justice. And Garza’s cousins, as well as investigators who reopened this cold case in 2002, are convinced that Rev. John Fiet, 27 years old and a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen at the time of the killing, is the one who raped and then suffocated Garza.
Today, Feit lives in a quiet neighborhood in Phoenix. He has never been formally charged with the crime, nor was he indicted after a grand jury investigation nine years ago.
In a sworn statement to authorities and during an interview with CNN, Feit denied that he killed Garza. Feit told police Garza left the church rectory on the day before Easter, 1960, after he heard her confession and the last time he saw her, she was standing outside the church.
In the investigation following the crime, police said that near Garza’s body they found items that belonged to the church. One item, a metallic Kodak slide photo viewer, belonged to Feit.
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