TEXAS
CBS News
A former monk who says the suspect in the 1960 murder of a Texas beauty queen admitted the crime to him speaks out on Saturday’s episode of “48 Hours.”
In a 2002 letter to San Antonio police, Dale Tacheny said he was in a monastery in the 1960s with former priest John Feit when Feit admitted to him that he had killed a woman. Feit is accused of killing 25-year-old Irene Garza, who vanished 56 years ago after Feit heard her confession at a McAllen, Texas church during Easter weekend.
Days later, she was found dead in a canal.
Though Feit has long been suspected in Garza’s murder, it wasn’t until February of 2016 that a Hidalgo County, Texas grand jury returned a murder indictment against him.Now an 83-year-old grandfather, Feit was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona and was extradited back to Texas to face the charge.
In the episode “The Last Confession,” which airs Saturday on CBS, Tacheny tells “48 Hours” he kept quiet about Feit’s alleged admission for years.
“I covered up the evidence,” Tacheny says. “I’m sorry for what I did.”
Tacheny reads excerpts of his 2002 letter to police during Saturday’s episode. In it, he says Feit admitted to him during a counseling session at a Missouri Trappist monastery that he had killed a young woman in San Antonio. Feit denies the allegations, and has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.
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