Prom Queen's Murder Solved After 60 Years

6/4/2024

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
After six decades the murder of Irene Garza, a south Texas beauty queen was solved. It turned out her killer was a priest.

Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Edinburg, Hidalgo County, Texas.

At the end of 2017, John Bernard Feit, 85, was found guilty of murder with malice aforethought. A jury deliberated for six hours before reaching the verdict. The crime was the killing of Irene Garza, a 25-year-old school teacher on April 14, 1960. She was a beautiful young woman who had been Miss All South Texas Sweetheart in 1958, and a former prom and homecoming queen at what then was Pan American College.

She was last seen leaving her home for church at 6:45 p.m.

Three days later her car was found in the parking lot of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Edinburg. A neighbor said the car had not been there the previous night at 9 p.m., however there was no sign of Irene.

A shoe, hat and purse with her driver's license inside were found along McColl Road on April 19. Two days later her body was found floating in the Second Street canal near the Sears Roebuck store. She was fully dressed, except for her shoes and underwear. Her lavender blouse had been unbuttoned. The marks on her face showed signs of a severe beating, and she had received a blow to the right side of her head. An autopsy confirmed she was dead when thrown into the canal. Since decomposition had set in they were unable to verify if her body had been mutilated. She was raped while unconscious, and died from being suffocated.

Irene Garza's body was found in the Second Street canal

In 1960, John Feit, 27, was serving as interim priest at the Sacred Heart Cathodic Church, and he was also Irene Garza's confessor. It was never understood why he decided to kill her on Holy Saturday.

Police questioned Feit, and he told them he had heard Irene's confession in the church rectory, and not the confessional. He failed a polygraph test, and his photographic slide viewer was found near her body.

Police interviewed two fellow priests who said he confessed to them about the crime, and one of them said Feit had scratches on his face soon after Irene's disappearance.

Two weeks before Irene Garza was killed, Maria America Guerra, 20, was sexually attacked by a man while she was kneeling at the communion rail in a church in Edinburg. She fled, after screaming and biting him on the finger. She told police the man that attacked her was Father Feit. A witness saw him run from the church after the screams. Local church leaders tried to discourage people from believing a priest was responsible for the incident.

Like the attack on Maria Guerra, in a nearby town another young woman attending church accused Feit of attacking her. He pled no contest and paid a $500 fine.

Father John Feit c.1960s

The Dallas Morning News interviewed Hortencia Gonzalez, a teenage parishioner of the church. She said, "we always had a warm relationship with other priests, I don't remember him (Feit) as being a warm person."

She narrowly missed being killed by the priest. She had gone to confession at 5 p.m. before Irene Garza arrived. After hearing her confession, Feit said, "I need to talk to you after confession, so wait for me." Instead she slipped out a side door and ran home.

Four months after Irene's murder, police came to the church to arrest Father Feit on a charge of assault with intent to rape Maria America Guerra. This is when they learned he was no longer in Texas.

He was declared a fugitive and he turned himself in a week later, after he had lawyered up and said he had been recuperating in a hospital from all the stress caused by the police questioning.

The trial for the assault charge ended in a mistrial of 9 to 3, with jurors favoring conviction. In 1962, Feit pled no contest to aggravated assault, which was a reduced charge and fined $500. His attorney said he was returning to the unnamed, out-of-state hospital.

In 1964, he went to the Servants of the Paraclete religious order in New Mexico. The center opened in 1947, for the purpose of ministering to priests and brothers with personal difficulties such as pedophilia, alcohol and substance abuse. The founder had tried to stop treating priests who were attracted to children and had homosexual tendencies, but bishops insisted he keep receiving them.

Dale Tacheny while he was a Trappist monk

He believed such priests could not be cured, and could not be trusted to remain celibate, and should be laicized even against their will. He opposed sex abusers to return to their duties as priests.

The existence of this establishment was kept secret from the public, and they opened several locations throughout the world. After a series of lawsuits related to sexually abusive priests they closed down, and present day there is only one open in Missouri.

However when John Feit went there, it was a secluded center sitting on hundreds of acres, and ironically he went from patient to supervisor at the Servants of the Paraclete, helping child molesters return to their ministry.

Why Feit was not prosecuted in 1960s for Garza's murder remains a mystery. There were rumors of a deal being made between church leaders and the district attorney to stifle the investigation, and avoid a scandal. The written report of examiner George Lindberg, the polygraph examiner, who asked him about both the Garza and Guerra crimes, stated that:

Mr. Lindberg asked Father Feit 'why the lie detector charts showed that he was not telling the truth when he denied committing either of the crimes.' The priest said that, contrary to his previous sworn statement to police, he had heard Ms. Garza's confession in the rectory.

When urged to admit guilt, Father Feit said 'there will never be any evidence turning up" and that "without a confession on his part, there is not enough evidence in either of those cases to convict him or that a good defense attorney could not tear holes in." He referred to two long-unsolved murders in the area and said that the Garza case, "like those, will be soon forgotten."

Father Feit ultimately tried to explain his test performance by saying that a man he didn't know confessed to him that he had attacked Ms. Guerra. 'The subject was queried as to where the confession was obtained, and he told the examiner that it was not in the confessional box, not in the rectory, but out in the open someplace and was very vague as to where this open place was.'

John Feit during his trial in 2017

In 1972, Feit left the priesthood, married, had children and lived in the Phoenix area. In the 1990s, he worked for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul as an administrator and spokesman, sometimes testifying before the Arizona Legislature about homelessness.

Irene Garza's murder case stalled and grew cold over the years, that is until 2002 when San Antonio police received a letter from Dale Tacheny (1929-2020). He was a former monk at the Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery in southwestern Missouri where Feit stayed in 1963.

He told them that Feit confessed to placing Garza in a bathtub at the pastoral house. He had assaulted her, then bound and gagged her. Hours or days later, he moved her to another location, and after some time he placed her in a cellophane bag and put her into a bathtub. As he left, he could hear her saying, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe." Tacheny wrote that he felt Feit had no remorse, but that he was haunted by the sound of Garza's heels.

In 2004, Father Joseph O'Brien (1928-2005) who perhaps felt death breathing down his neck, told a Dallas Morning News reporter that Feit had confessed the murder to him but omitted the victim's name, and he helped to dispose of Garza's belongings that were left in the rectory.

Feit Tried in Guerra Assault

In 2017, the new prosecutors subpoenaed records from The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), Feit's former order. Included in the file was a letter from Father J.F. Pawlicki to Father Lawrence J. Seidel, head of the southern region of the OMI.

Dated August 1, 1960, this was just 3 months after Irene's body was found in the canal, he describes advice he got from the sheriff. The contents does not mention Feit's name. The contents of the letter are:

Aug. 1, 1960
Father Seidel:
Last week I had the opportunity of speaking with the sheriff about the case. His observations are not only keen, and based upon much experience in such matters, but seem to be the course we should follow. I gave this same set of observations to Bishop Reicher and he too is impressed with the saneness, and the practicality of the sheriff's conclusions.

After outlining to the sheriff the many facts I had received from Father Nash, the Sheriff is of the opinion that the case is quite weak for the prosecution. He is also of the opinion that the prosecution must be made to see just how weak their case is, lest they go off half-cocked, and set the wheels into motions that would bring this out in public print, and give the opponents of the Church a field day. He is also of the opinion that the case would be tried here, and would not be judged on logic, but on the prejudices of the jury. There are alos (sic) political implications to this that could make this a juicy scandal for the opposition to Kennedy, and last of all there are the Masons, whom the Bishop feels smell a chance to hurt the Church, just as the H.E.B Baptists paid for the prosecution of the Priest in East Texas who was killed by the lad he befriended.

What to do of all this? First the Sheriff said that we should follow the idea of not hiring a lawyer for the reasons given by Father Nash. Second, we should not put a detective on the case hired by us, since that would mean he would be snooping around, re-questioning witnesses, and stirring up things again. However, he does feel that we should hire a person, something like a first class private detective who would be able to sit down with Father Nash and Father (Pastor of McAllen) to get all the information on this case. Then let him write it up, and present it on paper in such a way as to highlight the loopholes that are so numerous in this case. Once this is done, arrange a meeting with the police chief of McAllen, the prosecuting attorney, and the sheriff, plus four priests. At this meeting the whole situation is brought out, and the prosecution will be able to see how strong the opposition is to their charges. They can also be brought to realize in a nice way that the Church will not take this sitting down.

The Sheriff does not want more than the number mentioned, and he thinks that this will quiet things considerably. Once this is done, then after three or four months, or even less if possible, have this young man transferred to another part of the country, as a normal obedience. He feels that everyone knows that the priests are always being transferred around so this would not be strange. Afthr (sic) some time in his new place, a year or two, then have him sent out to a foreign Mission. The reason for the first move is to get him out of the area of suspicion. If something happens, the officers of the area will always be suspicious of him.

The sheriff conlcudes (sic) that the longer time we have, the weaker the case gets, and so he suggested all this foregoing. He has much experience in such things and I believe this is extremely wise. He also is a Catholic, and he also stands to lose materially by such a scandal here, in such a non Catholic area. I feel that he has rendered us an invaluable service. I submit these ideas after having consulted with Bishop Reicher, who is also in agreement with this course.

The Bishop wishes to see you, Father, at your convenience. Let me know if I can do anything in the future to help this thing along. Your worries are ours, since we fight the same Evil One who has concocted this thing in his ceaseless fight against the Church, and to stop the good being done by your wonderful Congregation. My prayers, and my Mass intentions are with you, Father, and I am sure our Priests will pray hard for a "special intention" mentioned as such to them.
Father J.F. Pawlicki, c.s.c

Original typed Pawlicki letter c.August 1960

There was no mention made of Irene Garza the victim, and of the agony her family was enduring.

Terry McKiernan, founder of Bishop Accountability, which archives, researches and monitors abuse within the Catholic Church said, "some people call it the 'geographic solution,' it was for many years the standard way for abuse allegations to be handled."

Sacred Heart rectory

Years later is when he realized the woman Feit described was Irene Garza. Prior to speaking to the reporter, Hidalgo County prosecutors spoke to O'Brien, and a grand jury probe found there was insufficient evidence to charge Feit.

The investigation into Garza's death was renewed in 2015 after a new district attorney took office in Hidalgo County.

In February 2016, John Bernard Feit was arrested at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. One of the lawyers who prosecuted the case in 2017, said Feit was a wolf in priest's clothing. During the trial he described how the parishioners of McAllen, especially the young women trust him implicitly, and he took advantage of this.

During the trial one of Irene's friends Beatrice Garcia testified that in 1960 Father John Feit stopped her as she was walking, and asked if he could take pictures of her dressed in black by the cemetery.

Another friend Ana Maria Hollingsworth testified that Irene Garza had told her that Father Feit had previously pulled her out of the church confessional, and had insisted she give her confession in the rectory, which in those days was highly unusual.

Neither of Irene's parents lived to see the resolution of the case since they both died in the 1990s.

The prosecution asked for a sentence of 57 years, but the jury decided on a sentence of life in prison. He was incarcerated until his death on February 12, 2020.

Feit's brother Matthias Albert Feit (1923-2019), also took holy orders and served as a priest for 60 years.

The murder of Father Richard Junius in 2007, who was Irene Garza's confessor remains unsolved

In 2007, while the cold case of Irene Garza was on a slow simmer, Father Richard Junius was murdered. He was 76 years old and a month shy of celebrating 50 years as a priest.

What is his connection to the Garza murder case?

Back in 1960 Father Junius was the other priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and was the original person Irene Garza meant to confess to, when instead she crossed paths with John Feit.

In the years after leaving Sacred Heart, Father Richard was sent to Mexico, and at the time of his death was serving at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mexico City.

A fire broke out in the basement of the church on the night of July 29, 2007, and he was found in the morning stripped, tortured, bound hand and foot, and strangled. There were porn magazines found at the scene. Mexican news reports insinuated he died as a result of "sexual misconduct", but didn't mention the fire and that several items were stolen from the church.

It was reported in the Catholic News Agency that "Church officials in Mexico, thousands of faithful, and the Congregation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, have strongly condemned the media coverage of the death of American missionary Fr. Richard Junius Sander who was killed on July 29 for denouncing a nearby popular club frequented by young people."

It's believed the true reason Father Richard was murdered was because he called out a neighborhood bar for serving liquor to minors. This might have impeded other illegal activities taking place including drug trafficking. Considering the country is run by drug cartels, it's not farfetched that a well-loved parish priest would be killed, and his death scene staged to ruin his reputation and smear his legacy.

No investigation was made of the crime, and it remains unsolved.

In 2016, Mexico was cited as the most dangerous country in the world for the clergy for the 8th time in a row.

They were two persons, who ironically were devout and undeserving of the violent death they were destined for.