Old Court House

The only woman legally hanged in Texas was Josefa Chipita Rodriguez. She lived in a shack on the Aransas River where she cooked for weary travelers and let them sleep on cots on her porch. When a traveler named John Savage fell victim to an axe murder, Chipita was the prime suspect. $600 in gold was recovered from the Aransas River north of San Patricio, as well as Savage's body in a gunny sack. Josefa Rodriguez and her son, Juan Silvera, were indicted on circumstantial evidence. After Chipita pleaded not guilty, the jury recommended mercy, but the judge ordered her executed on November 13, 1863. Chipita was kept in leg irons and chained to a wall in the courthouse until the day of her hanging. Her coffin was placed in an unmarked grave (a moan was said to have come from the closed casket). Many people claim to have seen her ghost, a woman with a rope around her neck.