Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra Blocks Justice in 1960 Murder Case

District Attorney Rene Guerra

With Cameron County's outgoing District Attorney Armando Villalobos convicted on 7 of 9 criminal counts, his Hidalgo County counterpart Rene Guerra is having his integrity questioned from a very different angle.  The arrogant Guerra is blocking, stifling, carefully controlling the pursuit of justice, despite numerous breaking events in the 1960 McAllen murder of Irene Garza.

The story, of course, is not new, but has been firmed up over 53 years with new revelations, admissions, independent corroboration  of statements, etc.  The latest expose' by Anderson Cooper, The Beauty and the Priest, aired three times in the last 24 hours, brings many of the details already out there in The Best Crime Writing of 2006.  One research article lists several Brownsville Herald stories by Emma Perez-Trevino in its bibliography.

The story, related as succinctly as I'm able:

Irene Garza, a 25 year old former Miss South Texas and school teacher did not return from her weekly visit to the Sacred Heart Church in McAllen.  The last person to see her alive, the 27 year old Reverend John B. Feit, chose to  hear her confession in the rectory. While Garza's car remained in the church parking lot, her body was found four days after Easter just three miles away in an irrigation canal with a slide viewer belonging to the young priest and a candelabra from the church nearby.  Police theorized at the time that the two heavy objects had been used in an attempt to keep Garza's body at the bottom with the cord of the slide viewer around her neck.

Father John B. Feit in 1960

24 days before the Garza murder, Reverend Feit had been arrested, charged with the attempted rape of another young woman, Maria America Guerra, in an Edinburg church where Feit was "helping out."  Ms. Guerra had noticed a man with horned rim glasses stalking her as she washed up in an outside bathroom at her home.  Later, at the church, Feit, wearing horn rims, attacked her, only turning her loose when she bit his finger, drawing blood.  Feit eventually plead no lo contendre to aggravated assault, paying a $500 fine.

Several suspects to the murder submitted to lie detector tests including Feit.  All, except Feit, passed.  Of course such tests are not admissible evidence.   Fifty years later, McAllen police, the Texas Rangers and other enforcement agencies believe Feit is the murderer.

So did Father Joseph O'Brien, the McAllen parish priest at the time of the murder.  He admitted years later that he knew Feit murdered Irene Garza, but he was instructed to transfer Feit to the New Melleray Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa, where Feit attempted to attack a woman getting out of her car.  Feit was transferred again to the Our Lady of Assumption Abbey in Ava, Missouri.  There a monk named Dale Tacheny, but known as "Father Emmanuel,"  was told to take charge of the former McAllen priest:  "The abbot called me in and said, 'There is a priest who murdered a woman in the guest house.  He wants to become a monk.  We are instructed to take him in.' "

When the Texas Rangers attempted to reopen the case in 2002, they ran into a stone wall in Hidalgo District Attorney Rene Guerra.  Guerra discounted the testimony of Father Joseph O'Brien, who he described as

Irene Garza

"senile."  Guerra also brassily declared that the statements made by former monk Dale Tacheny(Father Emmanuel) had been "fed" him by Texas Ranger Rudy Jaramillo.(George Sadler, San Antonio homicide detective states that Tacheny gave him the same information months before he told Jaramillo.)

District Attorney Rene Guerra finally gave in to pressure from the public and the family of Irene Garza to seek justice in the case, but he had a devilish, fuck-you ace up his sleeve.  A grand jury was called in 2004 and convened for 15 days.  Waiting to testify were Father Joseph O'Brien, former monk Dale Tacheny, Texas Ranger Rudy Jaramillo and others.  But the only witness called by the reluctant District Attorney was a lady who testified for the defense in Feit's earlier trial years ago.

Who knows what Guerra is thinking or what motivates him?  Is he protecting the Church, Feit or some sort of coverup?  He claims that, after 30 years in office, he is not seeking re-election.  If he backs off of that promise, hopefully the voters of Hidalgo County will put him out to pasture for fumbling the biggest criminal case in McAllen, Hidalgo County history.