TEXAS
People
BY DARLA HIGGINS @djatlas 08/17/2016
Beautiful and sweet, Irene Garza had many admirers in her hometown of McAllen, Texas in 1960.
The homecoming queen, whose other titles included Miss All South Texas Sweetheart, was also a devout Catholic. So it wasn’t surprising that she visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church for confession on the evening before Easter that year.
What was surprising was that she never made it home. Garza, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, was found dead five days later in an irrigation canal in town. The last person to see her alive was John Feit, a 27-year-old visiting priest, who told police he’d heard her confession that night. Two months later, when questioned about her murder along with the church attack of another woman, Feit failed a lie detector test.
Despite the alleged evidence against him, the case went cold for more than 50 years. That changed on Feb. 9, 2016, when Feit, an 83-year-old grandfather living in Phoenix, was arrested and charged with Garza’s murder. Now sitting in a Texas jail, he has pleaded not guilty and his bail has been set at $750,000. Of the allegations, Feit said, “This whole thing makes no sense to me because the crime in question took place in 1960.”
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