But this angel in Phoenix remains a devil in McAllen, Texas.

There-with renewed interest in the murder of Irene Garza, along with new evidence in the case-citizens are clamoring for an indictment ofJohn Feit.

The old evidence, much of which has been reviewed by New Times, makes a strong case that their quest for justice is warranted.

The new evidence-which includes testimony from two of Feit's closest associates, who say the ex-priest confessed to them that he killed Irene Garza-seems to make a case against him a slam dunk.

Yet the district attorney in south Texas, in whose jurisdiction the murder occurred, seems content to let things die.

Feit also wants the case to die. He has said, "I did not kill Irene Garza."

In that sentence begins an even deeper mystery, one that may only be solved by understanding a brilliant man's own concepts of faith, contrition, justice, and personality.

When asked by a reporter at his Arcadia home if he should be considered a danger to the community, he yelled: "Look at my record for the last forty-five years!"

Irene Garza's body was thrown in a McAllen canal on Easter Sunday, 1960-forty-five years and two months ago.

The week before Easter, 1960, had been unusually hot along the Texas-Mexico border. With highs already touching the nineties, residents of the valley surrounding McAllen were predicting a long, dismal summer.

Throughout the week, young adults raised in the area were streaming back to McAllen from college or new jobs. The Easter vacation was a time to see old friends, maybe even to rekindle or start a love affair.

The scuttlebutt among some returning young men was that Irene Garza was no longer seeing Sonny Martinez.

This was big news. Irene, as one unrequited suitor wrote, "was the closest thing to an angel" he'd ever met.

So bright, so beautiful, such a sweetheart, such a good heart.

Irene was the first in her family to go to college. After graduation, she returned to do what she had set out to do: teach disadvantaged children in McAllen.

She taught second grade at a school south of the railroad tracks, the line between the haves and the have-nots, the Anglos and the Hispanics, the longtime Mexican Americans and the new immigrants.

She spent her first paycheck on books and clothing for her students. She spent early mornings, late evenings, and weekends giving her students extra learning and fun. She worked with the local PTA.

Her students, she admitted in letters, were becoming her children, her life. She wanted her students to be able to cross the tracks if they chose to.

Like she had done. Irene Garza had become the first Hispanic twirler and head drum majorette at the Anglo-dominated McAllen High School, just a year after her parents' prospering dry-cleaning business had allowed them to afford a house north of the tracks.

Irene was Prom Queen and Homecoming Queen at Pan American College. She was Miss All South Texas Sweetheart 1958.

The catty teenage girls in her old neighborhood blamed her success on her light skin and bone structure and on her Doris Day-style clothes. She was tall and thin, as well as proper and dainty in pillbox hats and high heels.

To some of the little girls in her old neighborhood, though, she was a goddess.

"I can still see her," says Noemi Ponce-Sigler, the cousin of Irene's, who was ten when she died. "She was so beautiful and so good to us kids. [To] a little girl, she just seemed like everything you'd want to be."

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 I960. 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 helped Father Charles Moran at Sacred Heart Church in Edinburg. Through the spring of I960, he also often stopped by the rectory in Edinburg for coffee with Moran and the church secretaries.