After decades without justice, Irene Garza’s case finally moves forward. Now in his 80s, John Feit is living in Arizona but is extradited to Texas when a grand jury indicts him for Irene’s murder. The trial begins in late 2017, and the lead prosecutor on Irene’s case brings witnesses forward to paint a picture of what happened the Holy Saturday evening when Feit heard her confession. After two weeks, the jury deliberates for more than seven hours before finding Feit guilty. Snow falls in McAllen...
Mar 11, 2025•38 min•Season 6Ep. 6
McAllen police chief Victor Rodriguez recounts when he first met a key witness in Irene’s case, Father O’Brien in an unlikely place – a state prison in Huntsville, Texas. After submitting their discoveries to the DA’s office, Rudy and Victor feel hopeless because of comments made by the district attorney and his lead prosecutor. By 2003, the grand jury decides not to indict Feit in Irene’s murder, leaving a wave of disappointment again for Irene. A whole decade passes until a new district attorn...
Mar 04, 2025•33 min•Season 5Ep. 5
In 2002, the Texas Rangers launched the Unsolved Crimes Investigation Team. Ranger Rudy Jaramillo and his partner reopened Irene’s case, finding an unlikely witness to John Feit’s confession–an ex-monk. During the same time as Irene’s second investigation, the Catholic church was under scrutiny.
Feb 25, 2025•45 min•Season 6Ep. 4
After Irene Garza’s body was found, a formal investigation into the murder began. Investigators discovered the priest who killed Irene, John Feit, had previously attacked two other women. After a letter was sent between the church and investigators, a deal was struck to send Feit away without facing jail time–a common practice for the church.
Feb 18, 2025•39 min•Season 6Ep. 3
On Holy Saturday in 1960, Irene Garza told her parents she was going to an evening confession at their church. But Irene never came home. Her worried parents alerted the police and waited anxiously for five days until Irene’s body was found floating in a canal.
Feb 11, 2025•34 min•Season 6Ep. 2
A young high school student from McAllen, Texas, a small border town, went on a date with a guy from her class in early 1952. The two dated until their senior year, when they decided to go their separate ways. The young man went off to law school, not knowing his high school sweetheart, Irene Garza, would soon be murdered.
Feb 04, 2025•31 min•Season 6Ep. 1
On the evening of April 16, 1960, a young woman from McAllen, Texas named Irene Garza went to church for confession. She never returned home. A week later, her body was found floating in a canal. Decades would pass before the priest who murdered Irene was brought to justice in a historic case for the church and the Rio Grande Valley. In Season five of “Darkness,” host Talisa Treviño details the decades-long fight for justice for Irene. Hear from the investigators who tackled the case and Irene’s...
Jan 28, 2025•3 min
Introducing a new series from The Drag: " Forsaken ." "Forsaken" is a series that explores the systems that both enhance and oppress the lives of the more than 29 million people living in Texas. Each episode will address issues that Texans face each day – the good and the bad. We’ll explore the criminal justice system, Texas politics, civil rights, social issues and even a little bit of history. Texas is the second-most diverse state in the nation and has equally diverse stories to tell. As the ...
Mar 07, 2024•4 min•Season 5Ep. 10
Fifty years after the shooting, survivors, heroes and their families return to Austin. A committee pushes for a better memorial for the victims. Some testify at the Texas Legislature, trying to stop a law allowing guns on campuses.
Sep 26, 2023•51 min•Season 5Ep. 9
College students discuss their experiences growing up with school shooting drills and the constant fear of a shooter. Host Sara Kinney and a March for Our Lives representative go over the state of gun legislation today.
Sep 21, 2023•59 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Forty-four years after the Tower shootings, another shooting occurs on the University of Texas campus. Survivors continue their lives while gun violence grows as a hot-button political issue. The physical wounds begin to heal, but the emotional ones remain.
Sep 19, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Season 5Ep. 8
The shooting becomes national news. Students return to classes a few days later. Law enforcement continues its investigation. An autopsy is performed on the sniper. A police officer is laid to rest. Victims start their road to recovery.
Sep 12, 2023•45 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Ninety-six minutes after the shooting began, the sniper is dead. Everyone nearby converges on campus. Law enforcement and journalists work to identify the dead. Hospitals struggle with the influx of patients. Friends and families mourn their loved ones.
Sep 05, 2023•44 min•Season 5Ep. 6
More law enforcement officers swarm campus and join the efforts to stop the shooter. In the tower, a chaotic situation unfolds as a handful of officers and civilians make their way to the observation deck and exchange fire with the sniper.
Aug 29, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 5
A police officer assigned to divert traffic from the campus area decides to head into the action. The bookstore employee heads toward the tower and teams up with law enforcement. Together, they hatch a plan to stop the sniper.
Aug 22, 2023•42 min•Season 5Ep. 4
The shooting continues along The Drag, a nearby street full of shops and restaurants. An employee of the university bookstore helps a wounded boy. More people join the rescue efforts. Students eating lunch and shopping take cover or run to safety. Police officers, students, and others get their guns and begin firing back at the sniper.
Aug 15, 2023•48 min•Season 5Ep. 3
The sniper opens fire on the University of Texas campus and the surrounding area. He shoots a pregnant woman, leaving her on hot concrete in the middle of the gunfire. A local radio reporter heads to the scene. Students in a Shakespeare class watch out the window as a police officer is shot.
Aug 08, 2023•49 min•Season 5Ep. 2
It’s August 1, 1966, a hot summer day in Austin, Texas. Not that many people are on the University of Texas campus, except the students enrolled in summer classes. As Monday morning classes start, a 25-year-old former Marine has just killed his wife and mother. He packs the trunk of his car with seven guns and enough supplies to last him days. Then he drives to campus.
Aug 01, 2023•35 min•Season 5Ep. 1
On August 1, 1966, a sniper climbed the steps of the University of Texas at Austin’s 27-story tower. Seventeen people were killed and more than 30 others were injured. Fifty-six years later, mass shootings make headlines nearly every week. And the University of Texas tower looms over campus, a reminder of one of the first mass school shootings in United States history that has long been forgotten. In season four of “Darkness,” host Sara Kinney walks through the day of the University of Texas Tow...
Jul 25, 2023•4 min•Season 5Ep. 1
As the bloody year of 1885 draws to a close and 1886 begins, the police are no closer to solving the vicious crimes that rattled Austin. Even more than a century later, no one knows for sure who killed these women or why. This episode explores the various theories, from the effects of the moon to the possibility that Jack the Ripper started in Texas.
Mar 09, 2023•43 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Austin’s city leaders begin to panic amid the bloodshed and bring in outside detectives to help the city’s underperforming police force. Although six Black women have been killed in less than a year, the city and the nation show much deeper concern when two white women are killed in just one night. The mayor, governor, the media and the Black and white communities desperately search for the killer … or killers.
Mar 09, 2023•33 min•Season 4Ep. 3
A few months after the death of the first victim, another Black woman working as a servant in Austin is killed. And then another. With three murder victims and a clear pattern, modern officials would know that a serial killer is likely behind the attacks. With few forensic tools at their disposal, Austin’s small and racist police force rounds up Austin’s Black men. The killings don’t stop.
Mar 09, 2023•34 min•Season 4Ep. 2
As the capital of Texas celebrates the coming of a new year with exuberance, a dark shadow eclipses the city as an unknown killer stalks the streets. A Black woman working as a servant to a rich white Austinite is murdered, and her boyfriend barely survives. In a city rife with violence, the brutality of the killing shakes up its citizens. And the terror has only just begun.
Mar 09, 2023•44 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Law enforcement officers close in on the cult leaders in Mexico City as fear spreads in the communities along the border. As they learn all of the horrible details of the cult’s activities, they turn to their religious faith and to superstition. Thousands gather to celebrate the life of Mark Kilroy, a college student who was so much more than just a headline in a story about a missing person.
Nov 15, 2022•48 min•Season 3Ep. 5
A mysterious young woman taking college courses in South Texas befriends a charismatic Cuban American. The two of them work their way into a drug gang in Mexico. In the aftermath of finding the bodies on a ranch, investigators seek the couple. They are focusing on Aldolfo Constanzo, the Cuban American who they believe is the cult’s leader. He keeps slipping out of their grasp.
Nov 08, 2022•46 min•Season 3Ep. 4
The bodies unearthed at a Mexican ranch and the people who buried them lead investigators to believe there’s something deeply sinister going on. While tabloids publish screaming headlines feeding into the “satanic panic” and the border communities fear who has been living alongside them, Mark Kilroy’s family offers forgiveness.
Nov 01, 2022•47 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Across the border from Matamoros, community members and law enforcement join Mark Kilroy’s friends and family in a desperate search. The friends go on the popular TV crime show, “America’s Most Wanted,'' and Mark’s father pleads on TV for anyone to come forward with information. Police set up road checkpoints, and a car blows right through it. The driver thinks he has powers that make him invisible to law enforcement. Police follow him to a ranch in Mexico … ending the search.
Oct 25, 2022•43 min•Season 3Ep. 2
A group of friends takes a break from the rigors of college by hitting the beaches of South Padre Island during spring break. Just a short ride and a bridge crossing away, the Matamoros, Mexico nightclubs beckon the partying students with cheap alcohol and nonstop dancing. The friends get separated amid a swarm of students. They can’t find Mark, their buddy who goes to the University of Texas. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darkness-podcast/support...
Oct 18, 2022•48 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In March 1989, University of Texas student Mark Kilroy had everything going for him. He was preparing to take the MCAT exams and apply to medical school. He’d just turned 21. He was ready to finally take some time off from school and celebrate with his friends at America’s biggest Spring Break party spot…South Padre Island, Texas. In far south Texas, it wasn’t uncommon for students to cross the border into Mexico to continue the party. But after a night of partying in Matamoros, Mark Kilroy neve...
Oct 11, 2022•3 min
"Devilish Deeds" is out now wherever you get your podcasts! About episode one, "Wicked Work": As the capital of Texas celebrates the coming of a new year with exuberance, a dark shadow eclipses the city as an unknown killer stalks the streets. A Black woman working as a servant to a rich white Austinite is murdered, and her boyfriend barely survives. In a city rife with violence, the brutality of the killing shakes up its citizens. And the terror has only just begun. Additional sounds from www.z...
May 03, 2022•9 min•Season 2Ep. 9
