Testimony Starts in Ex-priest’s Trial for 1960 Texas Killing

Associated Press
November 30, 2017

https://kxan.com/2017/11/30/testimony-starts-in-ex-priests-trial-for-1960-texas-killing/

John Feit. (Hidalgo County Jail)

A prosecutor tells jurors evidence will show an 85-year-old former Catholic priest was responsible for the slaying of a South Texas teacher and ex-beauty queen 57 years ago.

Opening statements and testimony began Thursday in the trial of John Feit in Edinburg, Texas.

He’s accused of the April 1960 beating and suffocation of 25-year-old Irene Garza. She was found dead five days after going to a McAllen church for confession.

The Monitor of McAllen reports prosecutor Michael Garza told jurors that Feit committed the murder “with malice and forethought.”

Defense attorney O. Rene Flores says there isn’t enough evidence to convict Feit, who was living in Arizona at the time of his arrest last year.

Prosecutors are expected to present evidence about Feit pleading no contest to attacking a young woman weeks before Garza’s death.