TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News
By Aaron NelsenMarch 9, 2016
EDINBURG — A former priest accussed of killing a McAllen beauty queen nearly 56 years ago is being extradited to Texas and is expected to be booked into the Hidalgo County jail as early as Wednesday.
John Feit, 83, was arrested in Scottsdale on Feb. 9 and charged with the 1960 murder of Irene Garza, a 25-year-old elementary school teacher.
“Why,” asked Noemi Sigler, who was 10 years old at the time of her cousin Garza’s death. “That question just kept going through my head, ‘why, why.’ Now maybe we’ll know why that happened to Irene.”
Hidalgo County District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez said during a news conference Wednesday that investigators had uncovered new evidence in the decades-old murder, but he declined to comment on what was presented to the grand jury.
Garza disappeared after going to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen on April 16, 1960. Authorities allege that Feit, who was a 27-year-old priest at the church, murdered Garza after her confession. Her body was discovered days later in a canal. She had been beaten, raped while unconscious, and asphyxiated.
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