KTAR Newsroom Former priest arrested in Arizona for 1960 murder of teacher

A former priest has been arrested over the 1960 murder of Texas beauty queen and schoolteacher Irene Garza, officials and campaigners said Tuesday. The 83-year-old Feit was arrested Tuesday at his home in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale.

Garza was last seen going to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas to see the, then 27-year-old, Feit the day before Easter.

Authorities say Garza visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where Feit was a priest, on April 16, 1960. He maintained that the last time he saw Garza was in the church’s rectory after he heard her confession. Feit has been the prime suspect in Garza’s slaying but no one has ever been charged. Feit indicated on Wednesday during his initial appearance he wanted to fight the extradition. Feit said the murder charge didn’t make sense and that he’s puzzled because the killing occurred in 1960. He’s behind bars in Maricopa County, Arizona, where a judge set his bond at $750,000. An autopsy determined Garza had been raped and then had died from suffocation. It remains to be seen whether justice will finally be served for Irene, or whether Feit, who is now sitting in a Scottsdale, Arizona jail cell, can outrun the clock.

In an interview past year with The Dallas Morning News, Mr. Feit said he had nothing to do with the woman’s death. Another priest, Father Joseph O’Brien, reported seeing conspicuous scratches on Feit’s hands after midnight mass. When investigators dragged the portion of the canal where Irene’s body had been dumped, they found an Eastman Kodaslide viewer with a black cord-long enough to have bound together Irene’s hands-which belonged to Feit. Feit pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor aggravated assault charge and he paid a fine.

Just 24 days before the 1960 slaying, Feit had been arrested for attacking Maria America Guerra at a church in a town about 10 miles from McAllen.

Though he has denied any involvement, Feit has always been a person of interest in this case. “It was presented last week, and they came back with a true bill”. According to Emma’s reporting Feit confessed to Tachney that he had murdered a woman in Texas. “We sent them a completed case with what we thought was a viable suspect”, said Lt. Tony Leal of the Rangers’ cold-case unit.

It comes 12 years after the case was reopened, but a grand jury failed to indict in 2004.

The years passed and the case became a part of the cold case files of unsolved murders.

The Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office made an arrest in the murder of Irene Garza.

Sheltering Feit “was about protecting the church and somehow believing that the church takes care of their own”, said De La Vina.

UPDATE 11:57 a.m.: Hidalgo County District Attorney Rick Rodriguez will not comment on the case at this time but said the process to have John Feit extradited to the area is underway.

According to published reports, Rodriquez promised to take another look at the case while campaigning.