Talk about a cold case.
News Radio 1200 WOAI reports jury selection begins today in the Rio Grande Valley in the case of a retired priest who is charged in connection with a woman whose body was found near The Rev. John Feit's Sacred Heart Church in McAllen way back in 1960.
Irene Garza, a 25 year old schoolteacher and beauty queen, was found dead in a canal near the church, where she had gone for mass in April of 1960.
Father Feit, now 84 and retired, was a young priest at the parish 57 years ago, and he was a questioned in the case. But officials say that, at the urging of local Catholic leaders, investigators were encouraged not to pursue Feit as a suspect. Feit was quickly transferred to another parish in Arizona, where he lived in a retirement community until his arrest last year, after the case lay dormant for decades.
The Texas Rangers say a fellow priest told Rangers during the initial investigation that he saw Feit with scratches on his hands and said Feit had confessed to him that he had killed Garza.
Legal observers say, despite the cold evidence, getting a conviction ina case this old, especially one involving a priet in the overwhelmingly Catholic Rio Grande Valley, will be extremely difficult.
Feit has been in custody since his arrest several months ago, and he has denied involvement in the murder. The trial is expected to last for about three weeks.