CATHOLIC PRIEST FINALLY BROUGHT TO JUSTICE AFTER 57 YEARS FOR MURDERING MCALLEN GIRL

 

Irene Garza

Imagine that!  Justice after 57 damn years!

Finally, former Catholic priest John Feit is convicted for the 1960 murder of Irene Garza. 

Think about Irene's mom and dad going to their graves without closure to the murder of their beautiful 26 year old daughter.

Irene's other relatives and friends lived those same 57 years with a terrible knot in their throats, the most agonizing of unfinished business, knowing that a gentle cousin, friend, niece had been slaughtered without retribution.

The wait is over.  A Hidalgo County jury, after deliberating 6-1/2 hours, found the now 85 year old Feit guilty of murder.

John Feit

The torturous delay in bringing former Catholic priest John Feit to justice can be laid squarely at the feet of the Catholic Church, with an ugly assist from 32 year Hidalgo District Attorney Rene Guerra, who once said Feit would be indicted "when pigs fly."

We detailed the coverup in our 2013 article:

"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.

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.' "

Former Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra

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 "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."

We have no idea why former Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra fought so hard against bringing the former Catholic priest to justice, even manipulating the grand jury.  Was he protecting the Church?