EDINBURG (TX)
New York Daily News
December 8, 2017
By Jessica Chia
[Note: See also a PDF of the original Pawlicki letter and See also South Texas DA Refuses to Pursue Ex-Priest, by Brooks Egerton, Dallas Morning News, November 21, 2004.]
A former priest was convicted Thursday in the brutal murder of a Texas beauty queen who was raped, beaten, and suffocated more than 57 years ago.
A jury found John Bernard Feit, 85, guilty of murdering Irene Garza after more than six hours of deliberations in Hildalgo County on Thursday.
Gaza’s family members burst into tears in the courtroom, relieved that justice had been served decades after the 25-year-old teacher and beauty queen was found dead in a canal.
In April 1960, Garza disappeared after she went to confession at the Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, where Feit was a visiting priest.
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