Irene Garza (November 15, 1934 – April 1960) was an American schoolteacher and beauty queen whose death was the subject of investigation for several decades. Garza was last seen alive on April 16, 1960, when she went to confession at a church in McAllen, Texas. She was reported missing the following morning. Following the largest volunteer search to that date in the Rio Grande Valley, Garza's body was discovered in a canal on April 21. An autopsy concluded that she had been sexually assaulted before being killed; the cause of death was suffocation.