Best American Crime Writing 2006 - Mark Bowden [66]
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