Ex-reporter at Priest’s Murder Trial Tells of Cover-up by Catholic Church, DA

By Aaron Nelsen
San Antonio Express-News
November 30, 2017

http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Former-Valley-reporter-testifies-then-DA-said-12396939.php

John Bernard Feit leaves the 92nd state District Court during a break in Feit's trial for the murder of Irene Garza Thursday, November 30, 2017, at the Hidalgo County Courthouse in Edinburg. (Nathan Lambrecht/The Monitor/Pool)

A deal struck between the Hidalgo County district attorney and the Catholic Church allowed a priest who was a suspect in the 1960 murder of a South Texas beauty queen to walk free, former reporter Darrell Davis testified Thursday.

It was the first day of the trial of John Feit, now 85, accused of murder in the death of Irene Garza, a 25-year-old second-grade teacher who had gone to him for the sacrament of confession.

Robert Lattimore, then Hidalgo County district attorney, agreed to steer investigators away from Feit, and in return the 27-year old priest would be sent to a monastery to live out the remainder of his days, Davis told the jury. He was a television reporter at the time, assigned to cover the case.

Lattimore “knew that John Feit had killed Irene Garza and the church knew it,” said Davis, 77. Lattimore “had reached an agreement with the church that John Feit would be placed in a monastery for disturbed priests and remain there for the rest of his life.”

It was April 16, 1960, the evening before Easter Sunday and Garza had gone to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen. Her lifeless body was pulled from a canal five days later. An autopsy found that she had been beaten, raped while unconscious and then asphyxiated.

Two weeks before, Feit had attacked America Guerra at a church in Edinburg. It wasn’t long before Feit became a suspect in Garza’s murder.

Davis was covering the Guerra case and the Garza death for a local television station.

Testifying in the 92nd district court Thursday, the same courtroom where Feit faced charges of assault and attempted rape of Guerra, Davis recalled his off-the-record meeting with Lattimore.

Feit would plead no contest to assaulting Guerra, then be sent to a monastery, Lattimore told Davis in 1962, Davis testified. In return for his plea, the young priest would cease to be a suspect in the Garza murder investigation.

Feit did plead no contest to aggravated assault and was fined $500, then transferred to Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery in southwestern Missouri.

“An institution who is in the business of seeking salvation for others was complicit in covering up this murder,” said Michael Garza, assistant district attorney for Hidalgo County. “Because what happened, the evidence is going to show, is they made a deal.”

Even as prosecutors alleged public corruption and a Catholic Church coverup, Feit’s attorney, O. Rene Flores, assured jurors there would be no witnesses to the murder or evidence that directly implicate his client.

“You won’t hear evidence of corruption,” Flores said in his opening statement. “What you will hear is lack of probable cause.”

Flores and Garza sparred over the admissibility of Davis’ testimony about the alleged plea bargain deal between the district attorney and Catholic Church.

Judge Luis Singleterry allowed Davis’ testimony to stand.

Feit was transferred to Missouri, where he was supposed to remain, Davis testified. Eventually, Feit left the priesthood and married. He retired in 2004 in Arizona, where he lived for decades before his arrest last year.

Throughout the first day of trial in a sensational cold case that has been the subject of national media attention, much of it focused on Feit, witnesses who knew Garza personally, many of them now in their 70s and 80s, recalled that Easter weekend 57 years ago.

Garza had been Miss All South Texas Sweetheart in 1958 and a former prom and homecoming queen at what then was Pan American College. She was a devout Catholic who was admired by friends and family.

McAllen was a small town back then, surrounded by orange groves and fields of cotton. Everybody knew one another, testified Sylvia Acevedo-Stern, 76, Garza’s neighbor. Her murder shocked this South Texas community.

Publicly, Feit has maintained his innocence. In 2002, Texas Rangers, with testimony from two former priests who told investigators that Feit had confessed to the killing, reopened the case. Still, a grand jury investigation in 2004 found insufficient evidence to charge him.

Ricardo Rodriguez, the Hidalgo County district attorney, charged Feit in February 2016. Feit was arrested at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, in February 2016, then extradited to Texas. He remains in Hidalgo County Jail under 24-hour medical watch because of various ailments.

“This cover up has existed too long, Judge,” Garza said. “John Feit has lived 50 years a free man.”