Best American Crime Writing 2006 - Mark Bowden [62]
Irene Garza, though, never saw herself in such a positive light.
She was humble to a fault, so humble that she sometimes floundered in self-doubt. As she gained confidence in her mid-twenties, she came to believe that her longtime boyfriend, Sonny, was a smothering force in her life. In her breakup letter to him, after providing a lengthy list of her own faults (“Extremely sensitive,” “withdrawn,” “jealous,” “fearful,” “serious,” “my proportions”), she explained how Sonny made her “feel inferior and insecure.” She even made a list of what she believed Sonny needed in a girl:
“A self-confident female, a happy girl, a girl with just a little jealousy that’s enough to feed your ego, a girl not easily hurt, a girl who makes your burden easier to carry.”
And, apparently, from the girls Sonny had liked to ogle when they were out together: “A girl 38-22-38.”
Sonny admitted his frustration at having a flat-chested girlfriend who, instead of having sex with him, wanted to talk about children and God.
It was true that Irene was attending church more often, seeking, she told friends in letters, “to better understand and serve God’s will.” As for men, she told friends she wanted to marry and have a big family, but she wasn’t going to push the issue. And she wasn’t going to let Sonny define her anymore.
Irene wrote to a friend just before Easter that she had gone on a few dates with two men, one of whom she described as “this Anglo boy—not real handsome, but cute and religious (which is important). He is a member of the Legion of Mary and goes to Mass and receives Holy Communion every morning.”
When she disappeared, police first assumed she had run off with a man. Police interviewed dozens of young men who had shown interest in dating her.
Her family and friends knew better.
When she borrowed her father’s car the Saturday night before Easter, she said she was going to church for confession and that she would be right back.
Irene always did what she said she would do.
Besides, she was dressed casually. She had taken none of her possessions.
Irene was helping plan the Easter egg hunt the next morning for the children of the parish. Her family speculated that she may have had to talk to a priest about the logistics of the event.
Family members believe that is why she telephoned the church before leaving the house, asking to meet with a priest.
Father John Feit, a guest priest at the church helping out with the pre–Easter confession crunch, answered the phone.
Irene Garza then drove the twelve blocks to the church to meet with Feit.
Feit’s story of what happened next changed several times over the following weeks and years. Now, he refuses to speak about that meeting or the critical hours and days that followed.
Two years ago, after the case had been reopened, a Texas Ranger called Feit at his Phoenix home.
The Ranger asked Feit to speak to him about his role in the events that Easter weekend in 1960. Feit’s answer was as opaque as it was potentially illuminating:
“That man doesn’t exist anymore,” he said, hanging up the phone.
JOHN B. FEIT GREW UP on the south side of Chicago in a devoutly German Catholic household.
It was in the rough and vibrant Chicago of the 1940s, and Feit lived in a neighborhood of working-class families.
Much of the neighborhood was Irish, much of the priesthood was Irish. He developed an accent that faded from south-side Chicago to Irish brogue.
His uncle, also named John, was a priest in Detroit. His parents hoped that one of their sons would become a priest.
At age thirteen, John was sent to San Antonio to begin his religious education. He became a priest in Texas in 1958 within the Order of Mary Immaculate. A year later, he began a one-year internship program based out of a pastoral house run by the Oblate Fathers in the valley town of San Juan, Texas.
From that house, Feit and several fellow OMI priests took classes at nearby Pan-American College and helped fill in at parishes in nearby McAllen and Edinburg.
Father Feit often