The Murder of Irene Garza

On the Friday after Easter the police came to tell the Garza family the news: Irene’s body had been found; she had been beaten and raped. Josephina collapsed and let loose a cry that no one ever forgot. Her niece described it: “They said it was this long awful moan from deep inside her body – almost like the howl of a wolf. They said it was like nothing they had ever heard or ever heard again.”24 Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005.

When the police drained the canal in late April they found a portable photographic slide viewer a few feet from where Irene’s body had been found.25“Search Centering on Canal Section,” The Brownsville Herald, April 28, 1960. Possibly its cord had been tied around the body and used to weight the body to keep it from floating. The viewer belonged to Feit; he identified it as his.26Pamela Coloff, “Unholy Act,” Texas Monthly, April 2005. He never explained how his viewer got gotten into the canal near Garza’s body. The police received this note “This viewer belongs to John Feit (Order of Mary Immaculate,) of San Juan, Texas. It was purchased in Port Isabel, Texas, in July 1959 at Freddies Professional Pharmacy. Terms – cash. Price – I don’t remember. April 29, 1960.”27Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005. This information - that Feit’s slide viewer was found near Garza’s body - was not made public during the initial investigation of the murder. The police also found in the canal candlesticks that came from Sacred Heart Church. They made no effort to match them to the wounds on Garza’s head.28Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005.

On April 21, 1960 police learned of the criminal complaint about Feit in Edinburg. In Chicago, where he had been sent by his religious order, Feit was given four polygraph tests at John E. Reid and Associates by examiner George W. Lindberg, who later became a federal judge. Feit told Lindberg the contents of Garza’s confession.29Emma Perez-Trevio, “Priest’s Polygraph Disputed by Examiner,” Brownsville Herald, April 11, 2002. Lindberg asked Feit to explain the scratches on his hands. Feit said that the confession had upset him so much that he was sweating profusely and needed to drive around to cool down. Since he had sweated so much, Feit need to change clothes, so he drove to the San Juan center. It was locked, so he climbed up a tree to get in a second story window.30Brenda Rodriguez and Doug J. Swanson, “Ex-Priest Fights Suspicion Again in ’60 Rape-Slaying,” Dallas Morning News, January 19, 2004. (Feit told a different story in May 1960 in his sworn statement.) Despite the McAllen’s Police Department’s claim that the tests were inconclusive, Lindberg’s report said that the tests “definitely implicated him [Feit] in both crimes.”31In 2002 Lindberg, at that time a Federal judge, repeated: “I was satisfied that he [Feit] had, in my opinion, been untruthful in denying the relevant issue questions and that would involve the killing and attempted rape” (Emma Perez-Trevio, “Priest’s Polygraph Disputed by Examiner,” Brownsville Herald, April 11, 2002). Feit denied committing the murder, but claimed that the real murderer had confessed to him.32“Anatomy of a Murder Case,” Dallas Morning News, November 21, 2004.

The police asked Feit what had happened. He said that at 7 P.M. on Holy Saturday he and Father O’Brien were leaving the rectory when the phone rang. Feit answered it and asked to speak to Father Junius, who was hearing confession in the church. Feit told her that Junius was busy until 10:30 P.M., but he could talk to her if she could come immediately. Irene Garza arrived and discussed a personal problem and Feit then sent Garza to church to go to confession. He accompanied Garza when she left the rectory and he went to hear confessions.

At this point what Feit remembered and what others remembered diverged significantly.

At about 8:00 P. M. he got the rectory keys from Rev. O’Brien and went for a break. He said he returned to the church at 8:15 P.M. He began to get hoarse about 9 P.M. and returned to the rectory for a smoke and some soda. He again returned to the church to hear confessions. But the people in the church who were waiting to go to confession said that Feit’s line stopped moving around 8 P.M. and after that there was a sign that there was no priest in the confessional. Feit said at about 9:50 P.M. he noticed that a screw had fallen out of his eyeglasses. He told Father Bursch that he would have to go to San Juan to get his other glasses. Feit said that when he arrived in San Juan, he discovered that the building was locked. He had to place a wooden barricade against a wall and climb in through a second story window. He scraped his hands while climbing the wall. He went back to McAllen and said the Easter Vigil mass with the other priests. After the mass O’Brien noticed that Feit had scratches on his hand.33Pamela Coloff, “Unholy Act,” Texas Monthly, April 2005. On Easter day Feit went back and forth to the house in San Juan trying, he said, to get his glasses fixed.

After Easter, Feit was attending an audiovisual aid class at the University of Texas in Edinburg. Next to him sat Jose D. Garcia, who had just heard the news about the murder of Irene Garza. He noticed that Feit had obvious and fresh scratches on his hands. Garcia observed with great discomfiture that “they looked like fingernail scratches.”34Emma Perez-Trevio, “Man Recalls Former Priest’s Scratches after Murder,” Brownsville Herald, March 26, 2004.

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Harry Cecil questioned Feit about the murder for twelve hours. Feit told Cecil, “You will never convict me of anything.”35Emma Perez-Trevio, “Cover-up Alleged in Case Gone Cold,” Brownsville Herald, March 25, 2005 Cecil also went to Sacred Heart Church to look at the parish car. It had just been washed inside and out because there was blood on the seat.36Emma Perez-Trevio, “Cover-up Alleged in Case Gone Cold,” Brownsville Herald, March 25, 2005. The McAllen chief of police Clint Mussey thought Feit was guilty but had been transferred out of town before the investigation was complete, stymieing the police. The lead investigator could not believe a priest had committed the murder.37 Brenda Rodriguez and Doug J. Swanson, “Ex-Priest Fights Suspicion Again in ’60 Rape-Slaying,” Dallas Morning News, November 3, 2002.

Immediately after the murder Feit was sent to study at Loyola University in Chicago. He claimed he suffered another nervous breakdown there when President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.38Emma Perez-Trevio, “Former Priest Denies Link to Old Murder,” Brownsville Herald, July 16, 2002.

The Hidalgo County Grand Jury on August 10, 1961, indicted Feit on charges of assault with attempt to rape in connection with the attack on Maria Guerra at Sacred Heart Church, Edinburg, on March 23, 1960. After he was indicted for attempted rape, Feit said he was not bitter, that priests must expect persecution: “Christ told the Apostles, ‘Know that of the world hates you, it also hated Me.’”39“Charged Priest Says Not Bitter,” Paris [Texas] News, August 17, 1960, p. 2. After disappearing for several weeks to an unspecified out of state hospital, he surrendered to police. Feit had the venue transferred to Austin and was tried on September 12, 1961. The jury deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial.40“Priest’s Trial Ends on Deadlocked Jury,” Amarillo Globe-Times, September 15, 1961. In 1962 Feit pled no contest to a reduced charge of aggravated assault and was fined $500. He was asked if he had anything to say and he replied, “Nothing.”41“Rev. Feit Fined $500 in Rape Case,” Corpus Christi Times, March 28, 1962,   p. 1.    Later he claimed not to know what he had pleaded to in court.42“I was out of the loop,” Feit said. “I didn’t know that I would be convicted and found guilty on a plea of no contest. I didn’t know what that meant” (Emma Perez-Trevio, “Former Priest Denies Link to Old Murder,” Brownsville Herald, July 16, 2002).

Irene Garza’s parents thought that the police were not doing a good job. They confronted both priests, Joseph O’Brien and Feit, and O’Brien assured them that if Feit had done anything wrong, the Church would punish him, and “church punishment was greater” than any sentence he would receive in court.43Brenda Rodriguez and Doug J. Swanson, “Ex-Priest Fights Suspicion Again in ’60 Rape-Slaying,” Dallas Morning News, November 3, 2002. Feit then went to the Oblate’s headquarters in San Antonio, where he had important discussions with O’Brien, but the contents of these discussions would not be known to the police or the public until decades later. Feit also went to Trappist monasteries at New Melleray Abbey, Dubuque, Iowa, and at Assumption Abbey in Ava, Missouri; he again had significant discussions which would not be known to the police for decades.

Feit joined the Servants of the Paraclete in 1966 and rose to be a superior at the facility in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. There he supervised sexually abusive priests and decided when they would be placed back into contact with children. One of the most notorious abusers was James Porter, who had raped boys and girls in Massachusetts. In 1967 Porter arrived at Jemez Springs and was supervised by Feit. Feit sent Porter out into New Mexico parishes four times and each time Porter had to be returned to Jemez Springs because he had molested boys, mostly Hispanic boys seven to ten years old. Once Porter was caught sodomizing a boy in a body cast. Feit sent Porter to Houston where he also molested boys, and Feit lamented that Porter had “lapsed into his former failings.”44 Leon J. Podles, Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (Baltimore: Crossland Press, 2008) pp. 118-119; Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe, Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church (Boston: Little Brown and Company: 2002) pp. 43-45. But Feit wrote to Porter’s home diocese that “there has been no occurrence of the problem that plagued Fr. Porter in the past.”45 Reese Dunklin, “Convicted Priest Helped Abusers Stay in Ministry,” Dallas Morning News, January 19, 2004. Rev. Peter Lechner, the current head of the Servants of the Paraclete said that he was shocked, absolutely shocked that a priest with a criminal background made decisions about priests accused of sexual misconduct.46Reese Dunklin, “Convicted Priest Helped Abusers Stay in Ministry,” Dallas Morning News, July 13. 2002.

Rev. Joseph O’Brien in effect served as Feit’s probation officer, and was even named a “special investigator” by the city manager of McAllen. In December 1971 O’Brien sent the following note to the McAllen police:

After he left the priesthood, Feit in 1972 married an Hispanic woman he had met in New Mexico; they had three children. After several jobs in Chicago he moved to Phoenix and joined St. Theresa Church, where his brother, Matthias A. Feit, was pastor. As director of volunteers for the Society of Vincent de Paul in Phoenix, John Feit became a tireless advocate for the poor. He said of the homeless: “Many can’t fend for themselves. Most are in pitiful shape. Hundreds need help, and few are getting it.”48 William Hermann, “Phoenix Boom Left Indigents in the Dust,” Arizona Republic, April 12, 2000. Under Feit’s administration the Society moved into new Human Services Campus with a 300-person dining hall, and Feit respected the dignity of the poor: “We never serve soup because we don’t want to be a soup kitchen.”49Sarah Anchors, [no title in archive} “Around Thanksgiving fifty years ago….” Arizona Republic, November 28, 2002.

Nor was Feit’s work for the poor confined to his twenty years of paid work. The director of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Phoenix said that “John often went beyond what anyone would remotely imagine a man doing. He truly lived his beliefs. And his passion motivated many others to do more than they otherwise would have done.” When one of Feit’s coworkers ran into financial difficulties, Feit asked that his salary be reduced and the money given to the coworker.50Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005. After retiring in 2002 he has continued to work for the poor and organized a JustFaith program to help Catholics put their faith into action in social matters.51Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005.

His reputation may explain why the Arizona Republic asked Feit to comment on the revelations about sexual abuse. In 2002, to calm the outrage at revelations of sexual abuse and cover-ups, the American bishops had decided that allegations of sexual abuse should be turned over to the civil authorities.

Feit’s reputation as an advocate for the poor may also explain why the Arizona Republic, although it listed Feit’s name among those priests and church employees accused of sexual offenses,53Joseph A. Reaves, [no title in archives] “Bishop Thomas O’Brien (below) is prohibited…,” Arizona Republic, November 10, 2002. has never printed a word about Feit’s involvement in the Garza murder case. When asked by a reporter whether he was a danger to the community he said “Look at my record for the past 45 years.”54Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005. It was 45 years since Irene Garza’s murder.

Investigation Reopened

Rev. Joseph O’Brien OMI was pastor of Sacred Heart Church in McAllen in 1960; after Garza disappeared, he told police that he had seen scratches on Feit.55 Brooks Egerton, “DA Refuses to Pursue Ex-Priest,” Dallas Morning News, September 20, 2004. He kept pressuring Feit to admit what had happened, and finally at the Oblate’s headquarters in San Antonio Feit admitted to the murder.56 Brooks Egerton, “DA Refuses to Pursue Ex-Priest,” Dallas Morning News, September 20, 2004. O’Brien did not go to the police at that time. He did not want to embarrass the Oblates and he feared that Feit would deny the admission and sue him for slander. But decades later O’Brien told both the police and Irene Garza’s cousin, Noemi Ponce-Sigler, about how Feit had admitted to the murder.57Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005.

Dale Tacheny left the army in the late 1940s and joined the Trappists. He was known as Father Emmanuel; he was sent to Rome in 1958 to study and returned to the Abbey of our Lady of the Assumption in Ava, Missouri, as number two man and novice master. In 1963 the abbot called Tacheny with an unusual assignment. He told Tacheny that “there is a priest who murdered a woman who is in the guest house. He wants to become a monk. We are instructed to take him in.”58Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005.

Feit told Tacheny that he was bothered and made anxious “by women with high heels who walked on hard floors.”59Emma Perez-Trevio, “Confession to Murder: Former Monk, Priest Say They Know Who Killed Irene Garza,” Brownsville Herald, March 23, 2005. (The shoe of Irene Garza’s that was found by the side of the canal was high-heeled.60Pamela Coloff, “Unholy Act,” Texas Monthly, April 2005. ) Feit admitted to murder and expressed no remorse about it; he said “he had a sexual compulsion to attack women from behind”61 Brooks Egerton, “DA Refuses to Pursue Ex-Priest,” Dallas Morning News, September 20, 2004. especially “when he knelt behind them in church.”62Emma Perez-Trevio, “Confession to Murder: Former Monk, Priest Say They Know Who Killed Irene Garza,” Brownsville Herald, March 23, 2005. Tacheny asked why he wasn’t in prison; Feit replied that “the Church is behind me”63Robert Nelson, “Altar Ego,” Phoenix New Times, July 7, 2005. because the hierarchy did not want the faithful to be scandalized by the knowledge that a priest was a murderer.

Feit told Tacheny that he heard Irene’s confession in the rectory and then “subdued her and took part of her clothes off from the waist on up and then fondled her breasts.”64 Anderson Cooper, “Justice on Trial: Keeping Them Honest,” 360 Degrees, June 8, 2007. He put her in the rectory basement and returned to church to hear confessions. He went back to the rectory and moved her to an apartment that he maintained. The next day, Easter, he put her in a bag in the bathroom; as he left he heard her saying “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” When he returned later on Easter, she was dead.65 Brooks Egerton, “DA Refuses to Pursue Ex-Priest,” Dallas Morning News, September 20, 2004. He put her body in the car, “patting her on the breast,” telling her “everything will be OK.”66Emma Perez-Trevio, “Cover-up Alleged in Case Gone Cold,” Brownsville Herald, March 25, 2005.
 
Feit never named the victim, or where or when he committed the crime.67AP, “’60 Slaying Under Probe,” Tulsa World, November 21, 2004. Because Feit came from San Antonio in 1963, Tacheny assumed that was the date and the locale of the crime.

Tacheny thought that women were safe as long as Feit was in the monastery, but when Feit decided he didn’t want to be a Trappist, Tacheny had to prepare him to deal with his compulsions. Tacheny had some training in psychology. Tacheny thought that he had been successful. To test this “he sent Feit on unsupervised visits to churches in Chicago and Missouri, telling him to kneel behind women to see if he felt the urge.”68Emma Perez-Trevio, “Confession to Murder: Former Monk, Priest Say They Know Who Killed Irene Garza,” Brownsville Herald, March 23, 2005. Fortunately for these women, Feit no longer had these impulses; or at least that was what he told Tacheny, and that was the end of the matter. The Trappists could not keep Feit against his will, and the Oblates sent Feit to Jemez Springs, where he pursued his career.69 Emma Perez-Trevio, “Confession to Murder: Former Monk, Priest Say They Know Who Killed Irene Garza,” Brownsville Herald, March 23, 2005.

In April 2002 Tacheny, who had left the Trappists in 1967, was a tax accountant in Oklahoma City. He could not go to the grave taking the secret of the murder with him. He called the San Antonio police department and told Detective George Saidler about Feit. Saidler asked for the details in writing. Tacheny gave them, but Saidler could not match any details – a woman, in a church, at Easter -- to a murder in San Antonio, and put the case aside. In November 2002  Rocky Millican from the Texas Ranger Cold Case Unit stopped by Saidler’s office to pick up some information about a case. They chatted, and Millikan said the unit was busy, and some of the cases were extremely old – why, one was from 1960: “A woman was murdered on Easter weekend, and the main suspect was a priest.”70Pamela Coloff, “Unholy Act,” Texas Monthly, April 2005. Saidler felt the chill of coincidence that seemed much more than a coincidence. Saidler that night talked with Texas Ranger Rudy Jamarillo, who was handling the Garza case, and they agreed Tacheny’s case and Garza’s case were the same.

When an investigator called Feit in 2002 to tell him the murder investigation had been reopened, and was there anything that he could tell them as someone who had seen Irene Garza just before she was murdered. “That man doesn’t exist anymore,” Feit replied.71Brooks Egerton, “DA Refuses to Pursue Ex-Priest,” Dallas Morning News, November 20, 2004.

Footnotes
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