Author Lynda de la Viña grew up in the Rio Grande Valley during the 1950s-1960s. She belonged to a close knit Mexican-American family, and one of her favorite relatives was her older cousin Irene Garza. Ms. Garza, 25, was a beloved second-grade teacher, a winner of beauty pageants in the past, and a devout Catholic who found great comfort in her religion. On Easter weekend in 1960, she went to confession at the Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas and never returned home.

Multiple law enforcement agencies were involved in a massive search for her, until her body was found in a canal five days later. She had been beaten, raped and suffocated. The massive search then turned into a massive investigation, once again involving multiple law enforcement agencies. The prime suspect ended up being a Catholic priest named John Feit who was currently serving at Sacred Heart Church. He was also the main suspect in an attack of another woman in a nearby Catholic church a few weeks before Irene Garza was murdered. All involved were confident they had their killer.

Yet they were not allowed to arrest Father Feit for Ms. Garza's murder. Why? Because of a deal between a sheriff, a district attorney and the Catholic church. The church did not want the bad publicity and promised to send the pervert priest to a monastery for life, which did not happen. This book explains all the sickening details of that agreement. It further describes all the attempts over many, many years to get justice for Irene Garza, by her family and by others who knew a great injustice was done when John Feit was allowed to live a long life as a free man. It would take over 50 years to end his freedom.

(Note: I received a free ARC from NetGalley and the publisher or author.)

A well written true crime novel and part personal memoir about an almost sixty-year old murder finally being solved and justice rendered. Written by the first cousin of the victim with painstaking love and even-handedness, the book recreates the time, lives, location and vibrant Mexican-American culture that infuses the story with breadth snd depth. All reasons for my five star review.

Irene Garza was a twenty-five year old teacher and Texas beauty queen. She came from a humble and devoted Catholic family. Her beauty wasn’t skin deep, she was loved by her students and was very community conscious. On Holy Saturday in 1960 Irene went to confession but never returned home. Five days later her body was found floating in an irrigation canal. Her autopsy revealed she had been bludgeoned, raped when comatose and suffocated. A photographic slide viewer was found with her body. A young priest, Father John Feit wrote the authorities to say the viewer belonged to him but he had no idea had it had come to be where it was. What then emerges in the telling is the Feit was charged with an attempt on another woman just three weeks before, was charged, convicted only to pay a $500 fine. The murder, however, was a series of coverups by the Catholic Church and the local authorities. Feit eventually left the priesthood, married and lived in Arizona.

The story doesn’t end here - but no spoilers on how the case was reopened and a family’s long pursuit for justice ended. The author, a former economics professor, has studied power structures so what’s revealed in the coverup shows how institutions do these things. In this case the idea that a priest could commit such a thing was considered almost a sacrilegious thought. The outcome from the reopening of the cold case can be best stated in the words of expert witness, Father Thomas Doyle, who went on record to set in his thirty-five years of dealing with priestly cases “he had never before seen a document that so clearly implicated the Church and civilian officials in the cover up of a priest’s sexual crime.”

The book has two part. The first sets the scenario and background for Irene’s murder and then the murder itself. The second part desks with the reopening of the case and includes the author’s memories, the family dealings with the lasting effect of the murder in the family, and the arrest, trial and conviction. The epilogue is particularly moving and the afterword is a wonderful summation of the effects of power on a community.

Highly recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley and Leopard Dog Books for granting me access to this ARC.

4.5 stars

This book was very good. It was super informative about the Irene Garza case. I think that this book taught me to fight for people who are in my family. It also taught me to never give up or let anyone tell me to. I'm glad Lynda de la Viña got justice for Irene Garza. Thank you, NetGalley, for allowing me to read this book