The Best American Crime Writing 2006

by Mark Bowden

  The investigation of Feit would be kept as quiet as possible.

  After Irene’s body was found, police spoke again with Feit’s supervisor, Father Joseph O’Brien from Sacred Heart Church in McAllen—who admitted something he had kept quiet from police:

  Feit was his prime suspect too.

  MARIA AMERICA GUERRA HAD returned home in the late afternoon of March 23, 1960, after attending classes at Pan-American College.

  At 4:30 P.M., the pretty, light-skinned twenty-year-old had gone to the outdoor bathhouse behind her home in Edinburg to get cleaned up.

  As she walked outside, she noticed a man watching her from a parked car adjacent to the bathhouse, which sat directly across from Sacred Heart Church in Edinburg.

  In her April 1960 statement to police, Guerra described the young man as having black hair and horn-rimmed glasses.

  He was sitting in a blue-and-white 1955 or 1956 model car.

  Later, after dinner, Guerra said she left the house to go across the street to pray in the church.

  As she left, she noticed the same car parked between her house and the church. The man with the horn-rimmed glasses was not in the vehicle.

  She entered the church through the main doors and walked to the communion rail.

  “As I entered the church, I noticed a man sitting alone in one of the rear benches on my left,” she said. “This man also had black hair and horn-rimmed glasses, and the thought that it was the same man that I saw earlier entered my mind. But being in a house of God, I dismissed any thoughts of foul play.”

  Another lady was in the church praying as Guerra knelt to pray. That lady, whom Guerra did not know, soon stood and left the church.

  Moments later, Guerra said, she heard the footsteps of someone coming from the back of the church toward the front.

  “I looked to see who it was and noticed that it was a man, the same man sitting at the rear of the church when I entered. I noticed that he was wearing a light beige T-shirt and black pants.”

  Guerra said the man walked to a side door, looked out in both directions, then quickly walked back in her direction.

  “The next thing I know, he had turned very quick, come to my rear and grabbed me around the head.

  “He placed a small cloth over my mouth, and I fell backward to the floor. I began to scream now as when I fell, the rag fell free from my mouth. Then while I was on the floor, he tried to cover my mouth with his hands to stop me from screaming and when he did this, one of his fingers went into my mouth and I bit it very hard. I know that I bit it very hard because I could taste blood in my mouth.

  “When I bit him, he threw me toward the south side door of the church and ran out the north side door.”

  Guerra ran to the rectory and rang the doorbell. Father Charles Moran, who was inside taking a shower, yelled for her “to wait a minute.”

  As she was ringing the bell, a young woman came up to her and asked what had happened. The woman had heard her scream. Guerra told her she had been attacked in the church. The woman then walked away.

  Guerra, afraid that the man might still be lurking, decided to head quickly back to her home.

  She noticed the blue-and-white car was gone.

  The woman who asked her what had happened was Maria Cristina Tijerina, who was walking past the church on her way to work at 6:20 P.M.

  “As I passed the front door [of the church], I heard some screams coming from inside the church,” she said. “I became interested and started trying to see what was happening. I kept walking while I was looking because I was late for work.

  “As I passed the side door of this church, a young man about twenty-nine or thirty years old came out walking very fast like he was in a hurry. When I saw the man, I didn’t hear any more screams. He was dressed in black pants and had a white T-shirt on. In his hands, he was holding a towel about the size of a face towel.”

  Tijerina saw the man enter the door to the church sacristy. She saw Guerra leave the church and head toward the rectory. Tijerina said she then went to ask Guerra what had happened.

  In early May, Guerra was taken to the McAllen police station by a deputy sheriff. Investigators wanted her to see the lead suspect in the Irene Garza case.

  “I looked at this man, and I [said] that I thought he was the one [who had attacked] me. Later that night, I told my mother this was the man who attacked me.”

  Guerra wrote in a statement two weeks later, “I saw this same man not long after in the library at Pan-American College, but I saw him dressed as a priest, and I was surprised to see him dressed as a priest, as this was the same man I had seen at the Police Station in McAllen. The minute I saw him I felt afraid of him.

  “I want to state that this same Priest that I have seen [at the] College and that I saw at the Police Station in McAllen is the same man who attacked me in church in Edinburg. I am positive he is the same man.”

  The man she identified was Father John Feit.

  THE INTERNING PRIEST FROM SAN ANTONIO admitted he had visited Father Charles Moran at Sacred Heart Church the afternoon Guerra was attacked. Feit also admitted that he went into the church to pray, but said he exited the building by 5:15 P.M. to talk to Father Moran about “the personal problems of a boy from Edinburg.” He said he then returned to San Juan in his blue-and-white 1956 Ford Tudor in time to “ring the 5:30 bell for Adoration.”

  Moran, however, remembered nothing of a conversation with Feit about a boy’s troubles. He just remembered Feit coming “for no good reason I know of.” Moran remembered Feit was dressed in black pants and a light-tan shirt with his usual horn-rimmed glasses.

  Other witnesses said Feit didn’t ring the 5:30 bell in San Juan.

  Feit then gave a second police statement in which he tried to explain the contradictions.

  “I believe I hurt my cause by trying to be too specific and detailed about my doings on that afternoon of March 23. Frankly, it was just another routine day, and it is very hard to recall my exact whereabouts, actions or what have you at any exact time.”

  Regarding the bell-ringing: “I left the rectory and drove to San Juan, arriving in time to ring the bell, for supper or chapel service? I don’t know for sure.”

  Besides the victim’s and the chief witness’s identifying Feit—besides witnesses contradicting his story—the most damning evidence was Feit’s mangled left pinkie finger, which several fellow priests and church workers noticed in the days after March 23.

  In Feit’s initial statement to police, he explained that his finger had been injured in a church mimeograph machine the day before Guerra was attacked.

  “In trying to make the stencil ink better, the little finger of my left hand caught between the revolving drum and the frame breaking the skin and causing a severe bruise.”

  Feit wrote that on Tuesday night, the day before Guerra was attacked, he asked a Father Houlahan for some rubbing alcohol to soak his finger.

  Feit wrote that he also went to the secretary at the Edinburg church on the morning of March 23 asking for a bandage for the injury. Feit said, “She asked me how I hurt my finger, and I said I hurt it in the mimeograph machine.”

  Father Houlahan, in his statement, said that Feit came to him later in the week regarding his wounded finger.

  And a secretary at the church in Edinburg was adamant in her statement that Feit came the morning after the Guerra attack asking for a bandage. And she was vocal in her suspicion that her mimeograph machine could not have done the damage to Feit’s finger.

  That secretary, Cleotilde “Tilly” Sanchez, still lives in the McAllen area. And she says she still vividly remembers the events of March and April 1960.

  She remembers walking in as the church’s other secretary, Leonila Sanchez, was putting iodine on Feit’s finger.

  “I didn’t just ask Feit what happened to his finger,” she tells New Times. “I asked, ‘Who bit your finger?’ It had teeth marks on it. It was as clear as day.

  “Feit said, ‘It
isn’t a bite.’ I said, ‘Well, it sure looks like a bite. You can see the mouth shape on it.’”

  Sanchez says she had come to know Feit well during that spring. Feit was often over visiting Moran. Feit, she says, was always calling the church asking for Moran or for help with some issue.

  “Pretty early on, [Feit] wouldn’t have to say his name when he called,” she says. “His voice was that distinctive, and he was calling that much.”

  In late April or early May of that year, after Irene Garza’s body was found, after Sanchez had made her statements to police, a call came into the church that chills her to this day.

  “It was a Friday,” she says. “The phone rings, I pick it up and a man says, ‘You’re next, Tilly.’ I said, ‘What?’ And he says, ‘You’re next!’

  “It was Feit,” she maintains. “I knew his voice immediately. Father Moran walks in, and I tell him Father Feit just called and said, ‘You’re next,’ and Father Moran just says, ‘Oh, Tilly, it couldn’t be Father Feit.’ By that point I was just scared to death.”

  She quit her secretary job soon after.

  Investigators were confident they had an ironclad case against John Feit in the Garza killing.

  But they held off pushing for charges. They wanted to have something to offer Feit.

  The deal they came up with was this: If Feit would confess to Irene Garza’s murder, they wouldn’t bring a charge in the Guerra case. He wouldn’t have to face two trials.

  In reality, it wasn’t a very big carrot. Avoid an assault-related charge by confessing to rape and murder?

  Feit refused to confess that he killed Irene Garza. In the summer of 1960, Feit was charged with the attempted sexual assault of Maria America Guerra.

  Even without a confession, though, investigators felt confident they had more than enough evidence to charge John Feit with the murder of Irene Garza.

  That never happened.

  ON MAY 3, 1960, two weeks after Irene Garza disappeared, police asked John Feit to give a sworn statement of his whereabouts on Easter weekend.

  At 7:00 P.M. on the Saturday before Easter, he told authorities, he and Father O’Brien were leaving the rectory heading for the church when the phone rang.

  Feit said he returned to the rectory to answer it.

  He said a woman was on the line asking to see Father Junius, who was already taking confessions in the church.

  Feit said he told the woman that Father Junius would be busy until 10:30 P.M., but that he could talk to her if she hurried down to the church.

  Irene Garza, whom Feit says he didn’t know, arrived five minutes later.

  “She was a light-complected girl, apparently of Latin American extraction—good-looking. She spoke perfect English,” he told police.

  “For ten minutes she discussed a personal problem of hers with me, the nature of which I do not feel justified in making public since it involved my obligation of professional secrecy as a clergyman and Catholic priest.”

  However, Feit did let on that the issue wasn’t too serious.

  “Her overall attitude and comportment during our brief conversation led me to believe that she possessed a very delicate conscience.”

  Feit said he sent Garza to the church so she could go to confession.

  Feit said he left the rectory, locked the door behind him, and headed to the church to help the other three priests give confession.

  Feit said he last saw Garza “standing on the sidewalk, in front of the church, arranging a scarf or handkerchief on her head.”

  At 8:00 P.M., Feit said he left the church for a short break. He saw Father O’Brien talking to some men outside the church. He went to O’Brien and asked for the keys to the rectory.

  From this point on, Feit’s story begins to differ from the evidence and the statements of witnesses.

  He said he returned to the church at 8:15 P.M. He said he left the church again at 9:00 P.M. to go to the rectory “because my voice was beginning to give out.” There, he said, he had a cigarette and a 7UP and returned to the church to give confession.

  However, a host of witnesses within the church said Father Feit’s confessional line stopped moving about 8:00 P.M. As Father O’Brien later told police, that was a sign there was no priest in the confession booth.

  Feit said that at 9:50 P.M., near the end of confession, a screw in his eyeglasses came loose and fell out. He told Father Busch that he would have to go to the pastoral house in San Juan to get his other pair of glasses.

  The next day, O’Brien and the other priests noticed that Feit’s hand was injured.

  Feit explained that injury away:

  “Upon arriving at the Pastoral House in San Juan, I found all the doors on the ground floor locked.” So he said he placed a wood barricade against the building and climbed up and through a second-story window.

  “While entering the house in this way, I scraped the back of my right hand slightly, and the index finger and middle finger of my left hand more severely on the brick wall.”

  He said he changed clothes and headed back to McAllen for the 11:00 P.M. service.

  He said he went to bed at 1:00 A.M. with a “severe headache,” which he assumed was caused by his second pair of glasses. He said the spectacles “never fit me as well as the first” pair.

  The next morning, Feit gave Mass at 9:00 A.M., then asked Fathers Busch and O’Brien if he could use Busch’s car to go to San Juan to get his glasses fixed.

  Feit said he worked on the glasses “for five minutes,” but had no luck. Then, he said, “I drove straight back to Sacred Heart Church.”

  At 12:40 P.M., he asked another priest to drive him to the Pastoral House in San Juan, where he said he stayed until about 4:00 P.M.

  He returned to Sacred Heart to give 5:30 Mass. Shortly after 7:30 P.M. on Easter Sunday, he said, he was given a ride back to the Pastoral House by Father O’Brien.

  Feit said he immediately realized he had left some of his belongings at Sacred Heart, so he borrowed a car and drove back to the church.

  There, he said, several priests were talking about the “missing girl.” As he stood there, the phone rang. Father Junius answered. It was Irene Garza’s parents wanting to speak with the priest who had spoken with her the night before.

  The parents came over, and Feit said he spoke with them. He said they asked him if he “had perhaps said anything which might have upset or disturbed their daughter.”

  In fact, Garza family members say, Nick Garza asked Feit, “What have you done with my daughter?”

  Feit said, “I could see the parents were very disturbed and upset themselves, so I sent them home as quickly and as quietly as possible.

  “I then picked up my coat, collar, and laundry and headed for home. It was about 9:15 P.M. But I did not go straight home. My talk with the girl’s parents had disturbed me. Perhaps I had said something, unintentionally, that might have upset that girl? I was worried, and drove around aimlessly for a while.”

  He said he stopped at a nearby Whataburger, got a malt, then drove back to San Juan in time for the 10:00 P.M. news.

  According to investigators, Irene Garza’s body was probably thrown into the canal on Easter Sunday evening.

  SEVERAL DOZEN YOUNG MEN were considered potential suspects early in the investigation of Irene Garza’s death.

  One by one, all proved to have credible alibis. And all passed lie-detector tests administered by state police investigators from Austin.

  All except John Feit.

  Nobody could vouch for Feit’s whereabouts at critical times during the weekend. And time after time, Feit attempted to control his breathing as critical questions were asked during the polygraph examinations.

  A lengthy report detailing the exams by Texas authorities, then by John Reid—arguably the top polygraph examiner in the country at the time—paints an ugly picture of Feit.

  The tests “definitely implicated him in both crimes,” the report said.

  “It is the op
inion of the examiner, based on this subject’s polygraph test, that [Feit] is purposefully attempting to defeat the recordings.”

  In fact, each time Feit was hooked up to a polygraph machine, he began taking exactly ten breaths per minute, “indicating that he was purposefully controlling his breathing even though he had been given warnings and instructions throughout.”

  Examiners secretly monitored Feit’s breathing rate during normal conversations. On average, they said, he inhaled and exhaled 16 to 20 times a minute when he didn’t believe he was being monitored.

  Reid went on to describe Feit’s demeanor throughout the tests.

  “The examiner pointed out in detail to the subject that he should make an effort to tell the truth concerning his implication in these crimes so that the church and the priesthood would not suffer when evidence definitely implicating him is turned up at a later date.

  “The subject, in very deliberate and explicit words, stated there will never be any evidence turning up in the future of this case.

  “He also pointed out to the examiner that there are two…murders in the area [that] had gone unsolved, one for 15 years and one for 20 years, and that this case, like those, will soon be forgotten.”

  When asked why he entered the priesthood, Feit answered, “I just wanted to give it a try.”

  When asked about the attack on Maria America Guerra, Feit’s answers bordered on the absurd. At one point, he claimed that Guerra’s true attacker had actually confessed to him.

  “The subject was queried as to where the confession was obtained, and [Feit] told the examiner that it was not in the confessional box, not in the rectory but out in the open some place and was very vague as to where the open place was.”

  When asked if the lie detector was incorrect when it indicated that he committed these crimes, he answered, “Your machine is probably functioning correctly, but these men from Austin have told me that I have a vague respiration and a bad heart.”

  What everyone knew—Feit’s attorneys, the examiners themselves—was that polygraph exams weren’t admissible in court.