0 >> well, i'm sorry i never got the honor of meeting him but an honor to meet both of you. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for having us. good evening. i'm anderson cooper. tonight a murder that's gone unsolved for more than half a century. a south texas beauty queen sexually assaulted, killed shortly after going to confession. suspicion turned to the priest but nothing stuck. police, though, they never gave up. so, now, 53 years later, evidence points only to the man who heard irene garza's final confession, the man they still suspect took her life. cnn's gary tuchman has the remarkable story. >> she had beautiful, shiny hair. she had this natural effervescence. >> she had the most musical type voice. >> she had a way with children, and she smelled like flowers. >> reporter: in 1960, irene garza was raped and murdered in mcallen, texas. >> one thing i remember is just screams. >> there was a suspect. who do you believe killed irene garza? >> father john bernard feit. >> father john feit. back then, a catholic priest. >> no evidence in this case right now points us in any other direction. >> so why is he still a free man? by all accounts, irene garza was a remarkable young woman. >> she kind of broke the mold. >> irene's younger cousin, noemi sigler. >> at that time, hispanics stayed on one side of town, anglos lived on another side, and she kind of transcended that. >> she was gentle and sweet and beautiful. >> lynda de la vina is another cousin. >> she was really a role model, and to see how she had gone through college, was a teacher, was a beauty queen and yet was just a very sweet and simple person to us as children. >> but in 1960, the body of this inspiring woman was found face down in this canal. she was 25, the age for thinking about getting married and raising a family. >> she didn't have a life. irene never had that chance. >> irene garza lived in this house in what was a very nice neighborhood near downtown mcallen and remains so today. she lived here with her sister and parents. on the saturday before easter, she hopped in her car for a short, five-minute ride to her church. irene went to confession every saturday. >> she was highly religious. it was very, very important to her. >> on that april day in 1960, irene met with father john feit, a 27-year-old visiting priest. he had come to the sacred heart church from a nearby town to help out on the busy easter weekend. >> kind of a nice guy, but he was a rigid fellow. >> dale tacheny, a former monk, says he spent six months with father feit at this monastery in missouri after irene's murder. tacheny was feit's spiritual counselor and says that in bits and pieces, he told him about a young woman he saw for confession just before easter. >> he offered to take her to the rectory. >> about sexually assaulting her. >> after fondling her breasts, he took her to the basement. >> about keeping her bound and gagged. >> he put something over her head. >> about her struggle to live. >> she was saying, "i can't breathe, i can't breathe." >> and about dumping her lifeless body at the canal. >> on the way over there, father feit said that he patted her on her breasts, she was in the back seat, and was saying to her, "irene, everything will be okay, everything will be okay, irene." >> even though john feit knew she was dead? >> yeah, yeah. >> while it was not unusual at the time for the church to deal with criminal priests internally, tacheny says he asked feit about the secular authorities. but why was he sent to the monastery, in your opinion, and not to the police? >> i asked, why are you here and not in prison, and he said, simply the church protected me. >> the autopsy states that irene showed evidence of recent trauma, sexual intercourse, and trauma to the head. evidence of strangulation could not be found, but suffocation could have been carried out by placing a cloth over the mouth and nose, especially if irene was unconscious. the subject was dead when placed into the canal. >> i believe he killed her, and i believed that then. i had no doubt about it because he said he did. >> so you have no doubt at all that john feit killed irene garza? >> correct. >> but dale tacheny did not come forward with any of this until four decades later when he said the guilt became too much to keep quiet. john feit left the priesthood. he has lived a full life. mr. feit, i'm gary tuchman with cnn. i want to talk to you about irene garza. >> good for you. >> it's not surprising he doesn't want to talk about irene, because not only do irene's relatives and dale tacheny believe he killed her, so does every police officer and law enforcement agency that's dealt with this case. do you believe you know who the murderer is? >> we have developed evidence sufficient to the threshold responsibility of probable cause that john feit was a person involved in the particular homicide. >> but with so much heat, why did the case go cold? early on, why do you think he wasn't prosecuted? >> a cover-up. >> who are they trying to protect? >> john b. feit. ♪ [ male announcer ] it's a golden opportunity to discover a hybrid from the luxury car company that understands that one type of hybrid isn't right for everyone. come to the lexus golden opportunity sales event and choose from one of five lexus hybrids that's right for you, including the lexus es and ct hybrids. ♪ this is the pursuit of perfection. just by talking to a helmet. it grabbed the patient's record before we even picked him up. it found out the doctor we needed was at st. anne's. wiggle your toes. 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