MISSOURI
News-Leader
Steve Pokin, SPOKIN@NEWS-LEADER.COM February 11, 2016
A former priest who reportedly confessed decades ago to a monk at the Assumption Abbey in Ava has been arrested in Arizona in connection with the 1960 slaying of a 25-year-old Texas schoolteacher.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department (in Arizona) on Tuesday arrested 83-year-old John Feit. He faces a murder charge in the death of Irene Garza in McAllen, Texas. He is awaiting extradition to that state, according to the Associated Press.
For more than 50 years, police in McAllen, Texas, have suspected the former priest in the killing. The case was the subject of a 2014 “48 Hours” episode on CBS.
Authorities say Garza visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where Feit was a 27-year-old priest, on April 16, 1960, the day before Easter. Garza was Miss All South Texas Sweetheart in 1958 and was the first college graduate in her family.
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