Chipita Rodriguez - Trial and Execution

Trial and Execution

Rodriguez was reportedly born December 30, 1799 in Mexico. She was a Mexican-American woman from the South Texas town of San Patricio who furnished travelers with meals and a cot on the porch of her lean-to on the Aransas River. She was accused of robbing and murdering a trader named John Savage with an axe. However, the $600 of gold stolen from him was found down river, where Savage's body was discovered in a burlap bag. She and Juan Silvera (who was possibly her illegitimate son) were indicted on circumstantial evidence and tried before 14th District Court judge Benjamin F. Neal at San Patricio. Although Rodriguez maintained her innocence, she refused to testify in her defense and remained silent throughout the trial, perhaps, some have speculated, to protect her guilty son. Although the jury recommended mercy, Neal ordered her executed. She was hanged from a mesquite tree on Friday, November 13, 1863. She was 63 at the time of her death. Her last words were quoted with being, "No soy culpable" (I am not guilty). At least one witness to the hanging claimed to have heard a moan from the coffin, which was placed in an unmarked grave. Her ghost is said to haunt San Patricio, especially when a woman is to be executed. Rodriguez is depicted as a spectre with a noose around her neck, riding through the mesquite trees or wailing from the riverbottoms.