Rene Guerra

At the 2017 trial, attorney and former television reporter Darrell Davis took the stand and testified about a conversation he had witnessed decades earlier.

He said that the district attorney at the time, a man named Robert Lattimore, had gathered a small group of media members for an off-the-record briefing.

In that meeting, Lattimore told the reporters that both prosecutors and Catholic Church officials knew John Feet murdered Irene Garza.

The Guerra plea deal, Davis testified, had been arranged as part of a broader agreement.

Fate would plead to the lesser charge on the Guerra assault.

In exchange, the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office would not pursue murder charges in the Garza case, and the church would take care of the rest.

transferring fight to a monastery far from Texas, where he would be quietly disciplined outside the reach of public scrutiny.

The Garza family would never be told.