REOPENED: Devil In Disguise

Summary

Cold Case Files Podcast – "REOPENED: Devil In Disguise"

Release Date: January 8, 2026
Host: Paula Barros (A&E / PodcastOne)

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode revisits the harrowing and decades-long cold case of Irene Garza, a beloved 25-year-old schoolteacher whose murder in 1960 haunted the Rio Grande Valley community. The story unpacks a web of community grief, procedural failure, religious influence, institutional cover-up, and ultimately, justice—albeit delayed. Through interviews, family reflections, and uncovering lost evidence, the episode traces how Irene’s case, long-shrouded in secrecy and collusion, was finally solved, and her killer brought to trial 57 years later.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Irene Garza’s Last Hours and Disappearance

• Setting & Community: McAllen, Texas, 1960—a predominantly Catholic, tight-knit Mexican American community.
• Disappearance: Irene left home on Holy Saturday to go to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and never returned.
• Family's Realization: Concern rapidly escalated overnight. Irene’s father reported her missing after finding her car near the church—with no sign of struggle but some keys missing.
  • "There was still hope at that point that, you know, she would come home." —Linda Garza, 03:50
• Search & Discovery: Community involvement led to finding Irene’s mud-covered shoe, her purse, and ultimately, her body in an irrigation canal, five days after her disappearance.

2. Initial Investigation – Dead Ends and Community Shock

• Medical Findings: Autopsy determined death by asphyxiation prior to being dumped in the canal; signs also indicated sexual assault.
• Early Leads: A Kodak slide viewer found near the scene was traced to Father John Feit, a newly assigned priest at the church.
• Father John Feit’s Statement: Admitted to having seen Irene for a private confession, claimed she left after and provided an alibi—celebrated Easter masses.
• Polygraphs & Witnesses: Over 50 individuals, including Feit, underwent lie detector tests; Feit failed his, but no actionable evidence arose.

3. Painful Stagnation – Decades of Silence (1960s–1990s)

• Family Devastation: Hope waned as years passed and law enforcement interest faded.
  • "What do you pursue when every person in a law enforcement position wants it to go away?" —Linda Garza, 12:18
• Community Cover-Up: Suggestions emerged that both church and police actively suppressed the case due to social and political sensitivities.

4. The Cold Case Reopened – New Forensic Tools & Witnesses

• Technological Advances: In the 2000s, Texas Rangers reviewed the case with modern forensic methods, hoping testing would yield DNA; results remained inconclusive.
• Breakthrough Letter: A former monk, Dale Tashney, wrote to police, alleging Feit had confessed to the murder during his time in a Missouri monastery (1963).
  • "When he got there, our abbot...wanted me to do the counseling with him, and he told me that he had in fact committed murder." —Dale Tashney, 16:01

5. The Confession – Secrets, Guilt, and a Pattern Observed

• Details of the Crime: Tashney relayed how Feit confessed to gagging, binding, and assaulting Irene, then disposing of her body in the canal.
  • "He told Dale that he had locked Irene in the basement...gagged her and bound her with a long electrical cord from the Kodak slide viewer..." —Narrator, 16:16
  • "The last thing she heard was, I can't breathe. I can't breathe." —Dale Tashney, 16:59
• Patterned Behavior: Before Irene’s murder, Feit attacked another woman, America Guerra, in a church—she survived by fighting him off and later identified Feit. Church authorities suppressed the case by transferring Feit and paying fines instead of pursuing criminal charges.
• Community/Church Collusion: Evidence and testimonials showed systemic collusion to protect Feit and, by extension, the Catholic Church’s reputation during a sensitive political era (John F. Kennedy’s presidential candidacy).
  • "This letter is more than a smoking gun. This is a battalion of smoking guns." —Michael Garza (paraphrased), 30:16

6. Family’s Relentless Pursuit of Justice

• Passing the Torch: After Irene’s parents died, her cousins (notably Linda and Noemi Garza) continued to press for answers, contacting new authorities and pushing for the case to be reopened.
  • "It was time to face my childhood monsters. Time to find justice for Irene." —Linda Garza, 13:21
• Emotional Toll: The pain endured by the family—never giving up on Irene’s memory—remained at the episode’s emotional core.

7. Justice Served – A Long-Awaited Trial and Conviction

• New DA & Trial: A newly elected District Attorney revitalized efforts. With witness testimony (especially Tashney’s), failed polygraphs, and records of church and law enforcement collusion, a case was built.

  • "This was my first cold case. What led me to believe that the evidence supported that John Feit murdered Irene Garza beyond a reasonable doubt?... When he did it, where he did it, what route he took, when he did it." —Michael Garza, 27:47

• Motivations Revealed: Feit confessed to having sexual compulsions triggered by women’s high-heeled footsteps, as revealed by Tashney at trial.

  • "When a woman wears high heels on a hard floor...I become anxious about that." —Dale Tashney, 29:00

• Political and Religious Pressure: Revealed correspondence between church officials and local law enforcement underscored the extensive cover-up—a calculated effort to prevent scandal.

  • "There are political implications...this letter is more than a smoking gun..." —Narrator/Michael Garza, 30:00-31:24

• Conviction and Closure:

  • After 57 years, John Feit, now 85, was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to life. He died in prison in 2020.
  • "We did it, you know, we did it for you. You finally got [justice]." —Linda Garza, 33:00

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Irene’s Spirit:

  • "We feel like Irene was the magic in the valley and unfortunately she became the tragic in the valley." —Linda Garza, 00:12

• On Community Mobilization:

  • "People actually volunteered to help. They had people out on horseback. They had people looking." —Michael Garza, 05:15

• On Institutional Betrayal:

  • "I think a lot of people knew that there had to be collusion to suppress this case." —Linda Garza, 24:00
  • "This is a case about betrayal, murder and a cover up by a man named John Feit, who came to the valley a wolf in priest’s clothing." —Michael Garza, 31:33

• On the Conviction:

  • "It was snowing. When does it snow in Edinburgh, Texas?...I knew it was Irene...it was time for a new beginning, a new day." —Linda Garza, 32:06

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Significant Segment | |-----------|--------------------| | 00:12 | Introduction to Irene Garza and the Valley's character | | 03:50 | Family’s initial hope and the community’s reaction | | 05:29–06:43 | Discovery of Irene’s shoe and purse, false kidnap call | | 07:23–08:07 | Irene’s body found, autopsy details | | 09:20–09:44 | Kodak slide viewer linked to Father Feit | | 11:00–11:20 | Feit recounts private confession with Irene | | 12:18 | Case goes cold, family despair | | 13:21 | Next generation takes up the case | | 15:39–16:59 | Monk Dale Tashney shares Feit’s confession | | 19:59 | Feit repeatedly failed polygraphs; ignored leads | | 21:07 | Feit previously assaulted America Guerra; church handled it quietly | | 24:12 | Irene confided worries about new priest, Feit | | 25:07–25:45 | Father O'Brien admits knowledge of confession, explains silence | | 27:47–28:08 | Michael Garza outlines evidence for trial | | 29:00 | Feit’s psychological triggers described at trial | | 30:00–31:24| Collusion letter revealed; impact on JFK and local law enforcement | | 32:06–32:37| Verdict, conviction, Linda Garza's emotional response | | 32:53–33:20| Feit’s death in prison and final family closure |

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Tone and Atmosphere

The episode’s tone is compassionate, persistent, and evocative—never shying from the pain endured by Irene’s family or the betrayals of trust by institutions meant to serve and protect. The speakers’ voices mix sorrow, frustration, resilience, and, finally, a measure of satisfaction as long-awaited justice is delivered.

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Summary and Reflection

"REOPENED: Devil In Disguise" dissects one of Texas’s most wrenching cold cases, illuminating not just the persistence of a family in the face of immense loss, but also the stunning reach of institutional collusion and the ultimate triumph of determined investigation. Through new witnesses, forensic revisiting, and the courage to challenge religious and political power, this episode tells the story of justice, long delayed but unwaveringly sought by those who refused to forget.

Transcript

[Narrator]

This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

[Linda Garza]

There was a time when the Rio Grande Valley was called the Magic Valley. We feel like Irene was the magic in the valley and unfortunately she became the tragic in the valley.

[Narrator]

There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's the Evening of Saturday, April 16, 1960 in McAllen, Texas, a city on the southern Texas border that sits in the lower Rio Grande Valley just seven miles from the international bridge that joins Hidalgo to Reynosa, Mexico. McAllen has always had a large Mexican American population and the area is filled with ranches and farmland. Throughout the 1950s, McAllen had grown from a farming community into a busy city. Legal segregation ended and Trans Texas Airlines was operating from Miller International Airport. Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorney Michael Garza speaks about the importance of religion for those in the area.

[Michael Garza]

The Valley is a very Catholic community. Most of us were raised in the church. Your social functions revolved around the church. Around the Easter time of the year, people stand in line for confession for hours in order to have their soul cleansed before receiving communion.

[Narrator]

It's Holy Saturday 1960, the day before Easter and one of the most important dates in the Catholic calendar. 25 year old school teacher Irene Garza gets ready to leave her parents house for confession. It's getting late, so after calling to make sure confessions are still taking place, Irene borrows her parents car and drives the 12 block distance from her house to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen. By 11pm some of Irene's family members and her God sister Sylvia Stern are at her house waiting for her to return. It's pouring rain. We had been invited to the home of Irene and so we were all listening to music when one of the cousins walked in. And you knew instantly by his face that something was wrong. He asked that all the music be turned off and told us that Irene was missing. At 3am Irene's father Nick phones the McAllen Police to report that his daughter has not returned from church. He told the officers that he's found the car parked south of the church on 15th Street. He's afraid something may have happened to her because she usually calls her mother to tell her when she's going to be late. The police told Nick to call again if Irene wasn't back by morning. So Nick drives the car home to look for Irene while her brother in law parks close to the church in case she comes back at 7am the following morning, the family calls the police again and a missing persons investigation begins. Once they got the car home, they of course started looking for clues or details about where Irene could be. The car doors were all locked except for the front right door. The keys were missing, but there were no signs of a struggle. Witnesses saw Irene walking from her car into the church and also saw her waiting in line for the confessional. But after 8pm that evening, no one sees Irene again. Her cousin Linda remembers how she felt at the time.

[Linda Garza]

We had planned to go to church together the next day and have an Easter egg hunt, and all of a sudden Irene is missing. There was still the hope at that point that, you know, she would come home.

[Narrator]

Irene Garza came from a large, close knit family.

[Michael Garza]

McAllen in 1960. There were actual railroad tracks. The Anglo Saxon community lived on one side of the tracks. Irene Garza's father grew up on the Hispanic side and then became a business owner and moved his family out of there.

[Narrator]

Irene attended McAllen High School, where she was popular and well known for her talent, kindness and beauty.

[Linda Garza]

She became sort of iconic in college with her beauty and her charm and her likability. She was the first Mexican American bronco queen. She was the first Mexican American Miss South Texas. She graduated from college, she became a teacher in a Mexican American neighborhood with kids that really needed help. She was a wonderful soul. And all of a sudden everything was focused on what happened to Irene.

[Narrator]

Irene made sure that her students had what they needed, even if it came out of her own paycheck. So when she doesn't return home from church on Holy Saturday, the community comes together to try and find her.

[Michael Garza]

People actually volunteered to help. They had people out on horseback. They had people looking.

[Linda Garza]

I went with my dad walking along canals, seeing if we could find her.

[Narrator]

Two days pass without any sign of Irene. But then something is found on the west side of McCall Road in McAllen that intensifies the search.

[Linda Garza]

I was at Irene's house when the shoe was found. You get that funny feeling in the pit of your stomach that that's just not right. It doesn't feel right.

[Narrator]

A mud covered beige shoe is identified as belonging to Irene. So the volunteers begin to concentrate their efforts in the area where it was found. The heavy rainfall from Easter Sunday has soaked the ground along the search route. But on the morning of the third day of the investigation, Irene's purse is found in a field along McCall Road. Investigators believed it had been thrown there sometime after Irene vanished. Tips start to come in regarding the case and One call has investigators jumping into action. A female caller identifies herself as Irene and claims that she has been kidnapped and is being held at a motel room in the neighboring town of Hidalgo.

[Linda Garza]

And all of a sudden, hope springs eternal that she's okay. Then the real key was, where was she?

[Narrator]

McAllen police officers raced to a motel in Hidalgo, hoping to rescue Irene Garza from her captor, only to discover that the call was a hoax. It was so sickening. I couldn't imagine that people could be that cruel. The investigators are back at square one, and the search continues. McAllen is an agricultural area, and the fields are irrigated by water canals that run through the community. Early in the morning of April 21, five days after Irene disappeared, McAllen police receive a call that a woman's body has been found floating in the Second street canal.

[Michael Garza]

She was discovered by some people that were walking by. She was lying in a canal for four days in the mud. You saw her body and how muddy and dirty it was.

[Narrator]

The body was found face down in the water, fully clothed except for underwear and shoes. Her petticoat is also ballooned over her head, and her blouse is unbuttoned. The body is taken to the morgue, where the victim is identified by parish priest Father o' Brien before an autopsy is conducted. It was the body of Irene Garza.

[Michael Garza]

The cause of death was asphyxiation without strangulation. Perhaps the most significant finding was there was no water in the lungs, so we knew that she had been killed prior to being dumped in the canal. The autopsy seemed to indicate that she had been sexually assaulted, so they were looking for a male suspect.

[Narrator]

Officers have to deliver the devastating news to Irene's parents.

[Linda Garza]

I was there at the house when they ultimately found her body. Remembering the cries. My mother, my aunt. Just inconsolable.

[Narrator]

The community is on edge. Anxious to know what had happened to Irene and who had done it, investigators continued to search the canal where Irene's body has been found. They drain the water in the hopes of finding more evidence that could lead to her killer. Drag marks on the ground beside the canal are photographed. And as the water level in the canal lowers, a Kodak slide viewer is found. The police are eager to trace the owner of the slide viewer, and local media outlets publish an appeal for information. A call comes in from Father John Feitt, a new and visiting priest at the Sacred Heart Church.

[Michael Garza]

John Feit tells the Macallan pd, this slide viewer belongs to me.

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[Narrator]

Since Irene was reported missing, and the police turned their focus to Father Feit, one of the last people to have seen Irene that night.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

John Fight said he and Father o' Brien were leaving the rectory, going back to the church to continue with the confessions. John Fight answered the phone. There was Irene. She said she had some phobias and did not feel comfortable giving a confession because people could overhear her.

[Narrator]

Father Feit tells the investigators that he instructed Irene to meet him at the rectory at 7pm for a private confession. Afterwards, Feit says, she put her veil back on and left through the church. It's suspicious, but Father Feit has an alibi.

[Michael Garza]

He does the High Mass at midnight on Holy Saturday. He does Mass on Easter Sunday as well.

[Narrator]

The trusted priests in a religious community quickly fades from investigative interest, and the detectives begin to speak to others who.

[Michael Garza]

Knew Irene for months. Investigators interviewed 100 different witnesses, took their statements and suspects were subjected to polygraph tests.

[Narrator]

Over 50 people undergo lie detector tests and all of them are clear. For two years, the investigators continue to chase dead end leads. But the case goes cold.

[Linda Garza]

My family, they were devastated. You had very broken people. My dad tried to pursue it, but what do you pursue when every person in a law enforcement position wants it to go away?

[Narrator]

By 1962, investigators have not solved Irene Garza's murder and they move on to other cases. Irene's family is desperate for answers and closure. But by the mid-90s, it seems like justice will never be served.

[Linda Garza]

My mother always kept the memory alive. She had a amazing large portrait of Irene in our living room. Unfortunately, my aunt passed away. My mom was the last to pass away and it was going to be up to the next generation to get it done.

[Narrator]

Tragically, Irene's parents pass away without any answers about their daughter's murder. But Irene's cousins are determined to find out what happened.

[Linda Garza]

It was time to face my childhood monsters. Time to find justice for Irene. In the early 2000s, I made the decision to pursue Irene's case with my cousin Noemi.

[Narrator]

Noemi's father was a deputy Sheriff with the McAllen Police and he had been part of the investigation in the early stages.

[Linda Garza]

He felt like he knew who had killed her and he was taken off the case by the sheriff. Vickers at that time just was unbelievable. It was the first time I ever saw her dad sitting at home on the couch, just crying.

[Narrator]

Linda reaches out to the new McAllen police chief, Victor Rodriguez, to find out what her late uncle knew. But the case is even bigger than the local police department.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

This case had gone unsolved four years.

[Narrator]

Given advances in technology that Texas Rangers began to have discussions about looking at the Iringar case. From a cold case standpoint, the Texas Rangers have a litany of forensic tools at their disposal. And the chief of police passes along everything they have on Irene's case. They begin to analyze Irene's clothing, purse and shoe for any DNA, fiber or print evidence that could crack the case. Case open. Front and center for me was our DNA evidence that we could process that wasn't available back then that we might be able to do today. Texas Ranger service ultimately processed some evidence for DNA. Inconclusive.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

And unfortunately as we went forward, we.

[Dale Tashney]

Did not get anywhere.

[Narrator]

Texas Ranger Jaramillo tries to track down new witnesses, but they are hard to come by in a 40 year old cold case. Except for one.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

Before I started working the case, George Sadler was the cold case detective. George Sadler received a letter from a former monk and that monk had told him about this priest that had killed a young Hispanic girl on Easter.

[Narrator]

Detective Sadler calls the witness dale Tashney on November 21, 2002, and asks him about the letter he wrote and how he got the information.

[Dale Tashney]

I came about it from John Feit himself, and he was sent to this monastery for whatever rehabilitation or may even been in agreement with the law authorities. I don't know.

[Narrator]

Father John Feit had been transferred to the Assumption Abbey, a Trappist monastery in southwestern Missouri, in 1963, three years after Irene's murder.

[Dale Tashney]

When he got there, our abbot, the head of the monastery at Avon, Missouri, wanted me to do the counseling with him, and he told me that he had in fact committed murder.

[Narrator]

Dale Tashney had a master's degree in social work and theology, and he had been tasked with rehabilitating priests who had been sent to the monastery. During their counseling sessions, John Feit confessed his own dark sin. He told Dale that he had locked Irene in the basement of the rectory at the Sacred Heart Church while he went and heard the rest of the confessions. He had gagged her and bound her with a long electrical cord from the Kodak slide viewer. When he finished listening to the confessions, Feit had asked the head priest, Father o', Brien, if he could borrow the parish car to drive to the pastoral house in San Juan. While the other priests were still busy with confession, Feit drove Irene to the pastoral house.

[Dale Tashney]

He put her in a bathtub and also covered her with a plastic covering. When he left this place, the thing she heard last was, I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

[Narrator]

Feit made it back to the church in time to serve at the vigil mass. And when he returned to the pastoral house, Irene was dead. Dale tells the detective that Fike confessed that he had raped Irene before loading her body into the church car. Later that night, he removed the plastic from her body and dumped her in the canal. Dale had been placed in a situation where he felt compelled to shelter Feit, and he kept his oath of secrecy about feit's confession until 2002, when he began writing a memoir about his time in the Catholic Church. This is the first time the investigators hear about Feit's confession, and they wonder if he had been a suspect. Back in 1960.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

We started looking at every interview that was conducted back in 1960. We started reading every single statement that was given. Everything strongly suggested that John Feit had committed the crime.

[Narrator]

42 years after Irene's murder, Texas Ranger Rudy Jaramillo looks at Feit's alibi with fresh eyes. When Fight had first been interviewed by the police, they noticed scratches on his hands.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

The investigators asked him about, you know, what happened to your hands? John Feit said that when he was in the confessional the day before Easter, he was playing with his glasses and that little screw had come off and he couldn't find it.

[Narrator]

Feit had asked Father o' Brien if he could borrow the church car to drive to the pastoral house in San Juan to get another pair of glasses. It's around a five mile drive from the church. And Fight said that he didn't have a key to get in, so he had to climb the wall of the building. He said that he fell and he had scratched the back of his hands. His account matches the series of events described in the confession that Dale Tachney said he was given. Except Feitt didn't tell the investigators that he had brought Irene in the car.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

John Feit was trying to stay two steps ahead of everybody. He told the authorities that he goes by Whataburger and starts driving aimlessly. But in reality, that was really when he was getting rid of her evidence. The purse and the shoes and also the body of Irene. That's when he placed her in the canal.

[Narrator]

The route he took matches up with the locations of evidence that was found in the days after Irene went missing. And Jaramillo tracks down John Reed, the independent examiner who conducted feit's polygraph in 1960. He is shocked to learn just how much the original investigators knew.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

He did not pass one of them. I mean, he just kept on filling the pun polygraphs. John Reed believed strongly that John Feit was involved in the murder of Irene Garza.

[Narrator]

The team reviewing the cold case are confused. Why didn't the original investigators keep the heat on Father John Feit?

[Linda Garza]

It turned out to be even worse than we expected. We had waited 40 years. It's just unbelievable how huge the collusion was.

[Narrator]

On March 23, 1960, three weeks before Irene went missing, 20 year old America Guerra, a student at Pan American University, went to a church in Edinburgh, about six miles from McAllen, to pray between classes. After entering the church, a man approached her from behind and placed a cloth over her mouth and attempted to suffocate her. America manages to back bite her attacker's finger hard enough that he releases his grip and she runs from the church. When investigators notice a correlation between the two cases, a month after Irene's murder, they speak with America.

[Michael Garza]

It wasn't until they showed her photographs that America identified John Feige. She kind of had to overcome this inherent feeling that a priest could never do something like this.

[Narrator]

John Feitt pleads no contest to the aggravated assault charges and he is fined $500.

[Michael Garza]

Prior to him pleading guilty, the church had sent some officials down and they had made a decision that Feit would be sent off to a monastery and that the punishment would be far greater than what he would receive through the justice system. Included in that was an understanding that the Irene Garza case would not not be pursued. So there's a reason why the case went cold.

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[Narrator]

Following the conviction, Feit is transferred to the monastery in Missouri to receive counseling from Dale Tachney. America. Guerra wasn't the only woman to report a disturbing interaction with a young priest either. 20 year old Beatrice Garcia had been walking to work in downtown McAllen when fight pulled up beside her in a car. He asked her to take a ride and said that he liked her dress and wanted to take pictures of her in the cemetery. Luckily, Beatrice wasn't fooled and she ran all the way home and told her father. But no one wanted to call the police on a priest. After all, it had been dealt with internally. Feit had been transferred out of Texas. Feit left the ministry in 1972 and eventually married before going on to have three children and multiple grandchildren.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

During the whole investigation, I had a sense that the Catholic Church knew that John Feit had committed the murder, but he was covering up to protect the church. But then again, we couldn't prove anything.

[Narrator]

Irene's family had their suspicions all along, but they felt as though they had been met with resistance everywhere they turned.

[Linda Garza]

I think a lot of people knew that there had to be collusion to suppress this case. We Tried to pursue it, but law enforcement was part of the cabal.

[Narrator]

Irene had spoken to a high school friend a week before her murder about the new priest. She said he was demanding and insisted that she go to confession with him and not at the church. Being a devout Catholic, Irene obliged, But her words about Feit stuck with her family. By November 2002, 42 years after the murder, Irene's family points the investigators in the direction of a key witness in the case against John Feit, A man whose silence had left them feeling weary about what he had known all along. The head priest of the Sacred heart Church, Father O'. Brien. The investigators find Father O' Brien in San Antonio in February 2003, and the retired priest seems eager to relieve himself of the information he had kept secret for so long. Texas Ranger Rudy Jaramillo interviews him about the case.

[Dale Tashney]

Father o', Brien, did anybody tell you Feit committed to murder? He told. This information came from John Feit himself, Is that what you're saying? Yes. And tricked John Feit into telling me that he had killed Lightning Garcia. I said, how can I help you if I don't know what happened? And then he said he bound her and gagged her, and she died of asphyxiation. Why did you not tell anybody that he had murdered Irene Garza? Because I believe he told me in confidence, and I was trying to protect that confidence.

[Narrator]

Father O' Brien's priorities, like so many in his position in 1960, centered around protecting the church, so he covered up whatever he could. He told Jaramillo that he felt relieved to have disclosed what he said had been on his back for years as the most unhappy part of his whole life. The investigators convince o' Brien to testify if they can take the case to court. But they still have to track down John Feit. They enlist the help of Dale Tashney, who phones the man who confessed to him decades earlier. John Feit is settled with his family in Phoenix, Arizona, when he receives the call.

[John Feit]

Hello?

[Dale Tashney]

Hello, John. Yes. This is Dale Tashney. How are you this evening? Good, good. You mentioned yesterday that you were having some health problems. Yeah, I really need to do what I need to do before I die. Okay. If your implication is that I am the man who killed Nyreen Garza, you are incorrect. I am not the man who killed Irene Garfield. Well, neither. That isn't me. You told me you killed a young woman. I have got to clear this thing up for myself before I die.

[Narrator]

Dale's son, Tom, thinks that his father felt like he had a new Responsibility to Irene and her family. And so Dale agreed to testify too. But a grand jury disagrees and votes against bringing the case to trial on the grounds of insufficient evidence. It's a devastating blow to those who had worked so hard for justice.

[Linda Garza]

Knowing me, myself, Rudy, Chief Rodriguez, we were really disappointed.

[Narrator]

Over the next decade, Irene's family tries in vain to convince the District Attorney Renee Guerra to to move the case forward. It's now 2015 and a new district attorney has been elected. The DA's top prosecutor, Michael Garza is assigned to take on the case.

[Michael Garza]

This was my first cold case. What led me to believe that the evidence supported that John Feit murdered Irene Garza beyond a reasonable doubt? Well there were witness statements we now know because of Dale Tashney. We when he did it, where he did it, what route he took, when he did it.

[Narrator]

They also have the case files that clearly state that Feit failed numerous polygraph examinations back in 1960. Assistant District Attorney Michael Garza is confident in the strength of the case and he issues an arrest warrant for John Feit.

[Michael Garza]

It was on Ash Wednesday my mother called and said, you know only my son would arrest me, a priest on ash Wednesday.

[Narrator]

It's November 2017, 57 years after Irene Garza's murder when 85 year old John Feit stands trial. Dale Tashney is the star witness.

[Michael Garza]

One of the interesting things that we learned from Dale Tashney was why John Feit attacked these women. Did he indicate that he had a proclivity for wanting to attack women?

[Dale Tashney]

When a woman wears high heels on a hard floor that click, click, click, I become anxious about that.

[Narrator]

It seems as though the sexually motivated strangulation of 25 year old Irene Garza had been triggered by the clicking of heels on the church floor. ADA Garza has more evidence to present something he is sure will remove any doubts in the jurors minds.

[Michael Garza]

I felt the jury was going to have the same question that all of us had which was why wasn't anything done back in 1960? And in fact in 2004 the case became even stronger. I felt like I needed to give them an explanation so. So we started subpoenaing records from the different institutions. And amongst the documents was a letter from one of the bishops to the sheriff of Hidalgo county.

[Narrator]

Expert witness Dr. Thomas Doyle testified about the collusion of the Church and the authorities during an election year for two high profile Catholics. Local Sheriff E.E. vickers who led the investigation and presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

[John Feit]

This letter explains the whole process of covering up John Feit started. There are political implications to this that could make this a juicy scandal for the opposition to Kennedy. After three or four months or even less, if possible, have this young man transferred to another part of the country. The sheriff is a Catholic and he also stands to lose materially by such a scandal here. The fact that Kennedy was a Catholic and he would be the first Catholic president if this came out, that might create an anti Catholic sentiment that would significantly threaten his chances of election. This letter is more than a smoking gun. This is a battalion of smoking guns because it is clearly a written down, well thought out concocted process to avoid justice. There's not one word mentioned about Irene Garza or her family. It's absolutely disgusting.

[Narrator]

John Feit doesn't take the stand in his own defense. Michael Garza summarizes the case in his closing arguments.

[Michael Garza]

This is a case about betrayal, murder and a cover up by a man named John Fife who came to the valley a wolf in priests Foley.

[Narrator]

After nine days of trial, the jury finds John Bernard Feit guilty of murder with malice of forethought. John Feit had gotten away with murder for 67 years, but finally he had been convicted.

[Linda Garza]

I don't think it really hit me until we walked outside in South Texas. It was snowing. When does it snow in Edinburgh, Texas? And I knew, I knew that it was Irene. And it was time where that snow would just clear all of this ugliness away. It was time for a new beginning, a new day.

[Narrator]

John Feit is sentenced to life in prison and died just two years into his life sentence at Huntsville Prison in February 2020. His passing gave Irene's family the sense of closure that they had been longing for for decades.

[Linda Garza]

In my mother's house, Irene's picture is still there. And I visit her, so to speak, her picture, you know, it's, it's very emotional. I was able to say, we did it, you know, we did it for you. You finally got.

[Narrator]

Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barros. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson. Our composer is Blake Maples. For A and E, our senior producer is John Thrasher and our supervising producer is McKamey Lin. Our executive producer are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on AE's Emmy winning TV series Cold Case Files. For more Cold case files, visit aetv.com.

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[John Feit]

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[Narrator]

Never.

[Detective Rudy Jaramillo]

You're welcome.