He headed back to Chicago with his new wife to start a family. He bounced through several jobs in the Midwest before finally moving to Phoenix and into the parish where his brother was a pastor, St.Theresa.
Noemi Ponce-Sigler couldn't believe what she was hearing when she picked up the phone last year. It was the voice of Father Joseph O'Brien.
He was calling from a nursing home for retired priests. He had decided it was time he told the family what he knew before his mind slipped or his body failed.
By 2004 both O'Brien and Tacheny were willing to become vocal about Feit's role in the Irene Garza case.They were also willing to talk about their frustration with Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra.
It was Guerra's job to consider charges in the reopened case against Feit in the slaying of Irene Garza.
For years, Guerra avoided the case. In 2002, when asked if he would pursue charges now that evidence seemed overwhelming in the old case, Guerra told the Brownsville Herald:"I reviewed the file some years back; there was nothing there. Can it be solved? Well, I guess if you believe that pigs fly, anything is possible."
He concluded, "Why would anyone be haunted by her death? She died. Her killer got away."
Guerra's comments naturally angered the Garza family, which still includes more than a dozen first cousins, aunts, and uncles (her parents passed away in the 1990s). But it did not surprise them.
"Guerra is just known to be politically motivated, pretty dang bad at his job, and also arrogant as hell," Noemi Ponce-Sigler says.
He is also part of a powerful Catholic family in the McAllen valley.
In 2003 the Texas Rangers submitted information from the agency's new investigation into the case to Guerra, but the D.A. refused to present the findings to a grand jury.
Leaders and media across Texas jumped on Guerra. Finally, in 2004, he agreed to let grand jurors consider the case.
Incredibly, though, Guerra refused to call witnesses such as O'Brien and Tacheny.And Guerra continued to trash the case even as he presented it to a grand jury.
In fact, Guerra called only one witness, a secretary from Sacred Heart Church in McAllen who had served as a defense witness for Feit in the 1961 assault trial.
The grand jury came back with a no bill, meaning Feit was off the hook again.
To investigators, witnesses, family, and many in McAllen, it was clear what was happening.
"[Guerra] didn't want to stir this up again," says retired McAllen detective Sonny Miller. "He badly wants this thing to die."
Soon after the grand jury decision, Father Joseph O'Brien called Noemi Ponce-Sigler to get some things off his chest.
With O'Brien's consent, Ponce-Sigler recorded O'Brien's comments for posterity:
Noemi:"Feit told you that he had killed [Irene]?"
O'Brien:"Yes."
Noemi:"Oh my God!"
O'Brien: "I suspected him from the very beginning." Noemi: "What happened that night? You're the only one who knows besides him."
O'Brien:"It was Easter week.We had a lot of confessions. After the Mass, we sat down and [Feit's] hands were all scratched. He gave me two different reasons. 'Well,' I said, 'okay, something is wrong here.'
"So, then, Father Busch-he's dead now-[and I] searched the attic for her.That's how suspicious we were." Noemi: "She did go to church?"
O'Brien: "Yes. She went to the rectory. I was in the church. Father Busch was in the church. [Feit] went back to answer the phone. We went and heard confessions. [Feit] goes back to the rectory. [Feit] took her to the pilgrim house in San Juan, kept her overnight.
"I'm just speculating that he hit her in the head with the candlestick."
Noemi: "Was [the candlestick] found in the canal?" O'Brien:"Yes."
Noemi: "When in the world did he ever tell you about the murder?"
O'Brien:"To be honest, I sort of tricked him. I said,'How can I help you if you don't tell the truth?' I kept asking him the question, over and over.Then he came at me. I said, 'Oh, this is great, one more step and [I'm] dead.' Then he went back to reading the prayer book he was reading.Then he finally admitted it."
Noemi: "When he admitted that he killed her, did he say, like, 'Sorry'?"
O'Brien:"No.Well, I don't know if he did later. I imagine so.We took him to Chicago to John Reid, the guy who literally wrote the book on polygraph tests. He said, 'This man is guilty.'
"What happened is, we knew he was dangerous, okay? We shipped him off to [monasteries]. Stayed ten years. Then he got married."
O'Brien is currently in the hospital. His health appears to be failing.
But the Texas Rangers have his complete story on tape. Now they just need a prosecutor.
More than a million meals go out to the needy each year from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's sprawling kitchen and warehouse facility in south central Phoenix.
The Society would be unable to feed the city's disadvantaged, as well as offer them clothing, medical aid, and numerous other forms of assistance, if it was not for the charity's six thousand volunteers in the Valley of the Sun.
From the 1980s to 2003, it was John Feit's job to recruit and coordinate the activities of the Society's volunteers. There are thousands.
The Society's Steve Jenkins and Steve Zabilski were asked to talk about the John Feit they know.
"He was phenomenal at reaching out to the community and teaching volunteers what it meant to grow closer to God through charity," says Jenkins, a longtime coworker and friend. "He is so clearly a man who has a genuine love for serving others."
"John often went beyond what anyone would remotely imagine a man doing," says Society executive director Zabilski. "He truly lived his beliefs.And his passion motivated many others to do more than they otherwise would have done."
The man they described is humble, deeply charitable, wise, kind, and gentle. Their John Feit has a mind that is nimble with history, scripture, and philosophy.
Their friend is nothing like his alter ego, the lead suspect in the brutal slaying of Irene Garza.
"It's black and white," Jenkins says. "We knew nothing about these past issues.We've only seen the white."
Feit began volunteering for the Society soon after joining the parish of St.Theresa near his home in the early 1980s. In the mideighties, Jenkins says, Feit was asked to join the Society's staff to liaise with volunteers.
"He was perfect for the job," Jenkins says. "He spoke with such passion and clarity about the mission of the Society."
Jenkins and Feit worked countless hours together, including during a trip into Mexico to do the charity's work. There, he says, Feit was the interpreter:"He speaks fluent Spanish."
Zabilski, director of the Society since 1997, says Feit's personal charity "knew no bounds." Several years ago, Zabilski says, one of Feit's co-workers was facing financial difficulties trying to support a family.
"So John comes to me and asks that I reduce his salary and give the other person the money," Zabilski says. "He's the only person in my twenty-five years of doing this who has ever done that. His only request was that I don't tell anyone where the money came from."
Feit also was instrumental in raising fifty-five hundred dollars to purchase and renovate a house for a poor couple trying to raise their twelve grandchildren. It was the first time the Society "got into the extreme makeover business," Zabilski says.
Feit retired from his Society job in 2003.
Jenkins and Zabilski were asked to read through the evidence and allegations from the 1960 cases.
"This is simply not the John Feit we know," Zabilski says. "To us, it's like two completely different people."
A visitor comes to John Feit's door asking for information about the JustFaith program he's involved with at St.Theresa's church.
Feit opens the door to the guest with a broad smile. He says he would be pleased to tell the visitor more.