ARIZONA
Newsday
Associated Press
PHOENIX – For nearly 20 years, John Feit was known around the St. Vincent de Paul nonprofit agency as one its most compassionate employees.
The former priest worked in downtown Phoenix with food-pantry volunteers and even raised money to buy a house for a needy family. His desire to help others was apparent at his church and whenever he showed up on the doorsteps of the poor with donated food or furniture. He also mediated disagreements when local agencies were first planning a campus to house multiple services for the homeless.
Feit was able to do all this charity work despite public knowledge that he had long been a suspect in the 1960 rape and killing of a Texas schoolteacher and beauty queen.
Now 83, he was arrested Tuesday for the murder of 25-year-old Irene Garza in McAllen, Texas. She was last seen at the church where Feit was a priest. Her bludgeoned body was discovered in a canal days later.
A grand jury brought the charge based on yet-to-be-disclosed evidence. Feit, who uses a walker, is now in jail and plans to fight extradition to Texas.
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