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CbabyRKO

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former Catholic priest who is now an 83-year-old married grandfather has been charged with murdering a 25-year-old beauty queen in 1960 after hearing her confession.

Irene Garza, a second grade teacher once crowned Miss South Texas, was last seen alive heading to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas, to see John Feit, then 27, the day before Easter, almost 56 years ago.

Five days later her lifeless body was found wrapped in burlap, face down in a nearby canal. An autopsy later found she had been raped while unconscious and suffocated.

Feit was considered the prime suspect for more than half a century, but was finally arrested on Tuesday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Garza's family said the church and police orchestrated a 'cover-up' as he was a member of the clergy, and had him moved to a monastery just after the slaying.

Since the 1970s he has enjoyed family life. He's married, has children and grandchildren and is a regular volunteer at his church.

But he is now facing spending the rest of his life in jail if he is convicted.

He said the last time he saw Garza was in the church's rectory after he heard her confession, but all the evidence pointed to him.

District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez told The Monitor he had presented his case to a grand jury last Thursday, and they voted to indict him.

'We had kept it quiet as much as we could — we sealed the indictment,' he said.

He would not say what new, if any, new evidence he had.

They are now waiting to see whether Feit will fight extradition back to Texas.

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

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

Feit pleaded no contest to misdemeanor aggravated assault. A judge found him guilty and fined him $500 with no prison time.

He was interviewed by police after Garza's disappearance, but told them he didn't do it. However he is believed to have failed a series of lie detector tests.

[...]

Garza's cousin Lynda De La Vina, who was nine years old at the time, told CNN: 'We were accusing a priest that - in those days priests were infallible.'

Noemi Sigler, was only 10, added: 'It was impossible for a priest to do such a deed. I mean, if you thought of it, that would be sacrilegious.'

She also believed that authorities and the church were protecting Feit.

'I don't know whether it was out of respect for the church or anger or fear, I have no idea.

'Shortly after the killing, the church transferred Feit far away to a monastery. He would be moved to other locations over time, and about three years after the killing, the church transferred Feit to Our Lady of Assumption monastery in Ava, Missouri.'

She even recorded a conversation with a former priest at Sacred Heart, Joseph O'Brien, who claimed Feit confessed to him and was sent away from the area because he was 'dangerous'.

Dale Tacheny, a Missouri monk at the monastery Feit attended, also came forward after 40 years because the burden of guilt had become too much, according to CNN.

Garza's cousins supported him as he ran for the DA's office in 2014. They asked him to re-examine the case to see if it could be taken to grand jury.

His bid to look back into the case was said to be one of the primary reasons he beat long-time incumbent Rene Guerra.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...dy-face-canal-five-days-heard-confession.html
 
Moving a priest to a monastery to cover up a crime...and it took God over 50 years to reveal the truth. Gee, ya know, sometimes, it's almost like there isn't a God at all, and religion is just a bunch of made-up crap, and...

Oh, what do I know. I'm a divorced Catholic who attends a Baptist church.

Glad the fucker was finally caught.
 
When priests go wrong.... just sayin'. I'm glad justice may finally be coming for Irene Garza.

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It has been nearly 56 years, but a slain Texas beauty queen may finally get justice.

A former priest has been arrested in Arizona in the 1960 slaying of 25-year-old Irene Garza in McAllen, Texas. John Feit, 83, faces a murder charge in the death of Garza, who was a schoolteacher for disadvantaged kids.

An autopsy found that Garza had been raped while comatose, according to the Washington Post. Her body was found fully clothed and extremely bruised in a canal, the paper reported.

Irene Garza, a schoolteacher and beauty queen, was found dead in McAllen, Texas, in 1960.
Garza visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where Feit was a priest, on April 16, 1960, authorities charge. She had planned to go to confession but was never seen again. Some of her possessions were found on a road outside the church, the Washington Post reported.
* * *​

Read the rest at:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/cri...0-murder-texas-beauty-queen-article-1.2526866
 
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ex-priest-guilty-murdering-beauty-140810372.html

A former priest accused of killing a Texas beauty queen in 1960 was convicted of murder on Thursday, multiple news outlets report.

John Feit, 85, was emotionless as he learned jurors had reached a guilty verdict after deliberating for more than six hours, according to the Associated Press and the San Antonio Express-News.

Relatives of the victim, Irene Garza, who was 25 when she was murdered in McAllen, Texas, hugged each other after the verdict was read, the Express-News reports.

Feit, of Scottsdale, Arizona, was convicted of killing Garza more than 57 years ago when he was a 27-year-old visiting priest. He chose to have the jury decide on his punishment, the Monitor of McAllen, Texas, reports.

Feit was working at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen when he beat Garza, sexually assaulting her and suffocating her after putting her in a cellophane bag and leaving her in a bathtub in the basement of the rectory while he went to the church, according to court testimony.

She was dead when he returned.

Some of her last words to her killer, according to a prosecution witness, were “I cannot breathe,” which she uttered as she gasped for air while Feit exited the basement where she later died, the Express-News reported.

On Monday, jurors heard testimony from former monk Dale Tacheny, 88, who said that in 1963, Feit told him about the killing when he was sent to Tacheny’s monastery, according to the Express-News.

“He put the young lady in a bathtub,” Tacheny testified. “As he was leaving, the young lady said ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ Then he left.”

Feit’s sentencing is set for Friday. He faces a maximum life sentence in prison.

Calls for comment to his defense and to prosecutors were not immediately returned on Friday morning. It is unclear if Feit intends to appeal.

Garza, a second-grade teacher and former homecoming queen who was named Miss All-South Texas Sweetheart in 1958, was a devout Catholic who was found dead in an irrigation canal in 1960 — five days after Feit said he had heard her Easter-weekend confession.

He was the last person to see her alive when she went to the church for confession.

Authorities at the time questioned Feit after they found items belonging to the church near her body, such as a candelabra. They also found a photo slide viewer that authorities said belonged to Feit.

Still, the case went cold for decades until new evidence led authorities to arrest Feit in February 2016 in Scottsdale, where he was living, Hidalgo County, Texas, District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez Jr. told PEOPLE at the time. Feit reportedly left the priesthood in 1972.

A month after he was indicted, in 2016, Feit pleaded not guilty to murder, maintaining that he had nothing to do with Garza’s death. His defense reportedly argued that the physical evidence was insufficient to tie him to the crime — but the jury was unconvinced.

More than a year after his arrest, Feit’s trial began on Nov. 30 in Edinburg, Texas. In his opening arguments, prosecutor Michael Garza argued that Feit committed the murder “with malice and forethought,” the Monitor reports.

Prosecutors said at his trial that while Feit had been suspected of killing Garza soon after she died, local political and church officials wanted to avoid charging him for fear of a scandal.

The prosecutor also told jurors that Feit allegedly attacked a woman in a nearby church two weeks before Garza disappeared, according to the Express-News. Feit was charged with assault and attempted rape in that case, but it ended in a mistrial. He later pleaded no contest to aggravated assault and was fined $500.

“This is a case about betrayal, murder and a cover-up,” the prosecutor reportedly said in his closing argument at Feit’s murder trial. “[He] was a wolf in priest’s clothing.”
 
What I'm surprised at is it's thought she was the only one. I pretty positive that there are more victims, even if he didn't kill them, just molested them, touched them and what ever else flipped his switch. Then the church kept moving him around to keep him ahead of his accusers.
 
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