[transcribed from 21 January 1968 Brownsville Herald archives with additional comments from Facebook post discussion]
County Held Last Legal Exeution 52 Years Ago – So-Called
‘Justice’ Was Swift
Robert Runyon photo
By Chuck Schwanitz
Soon it will be 52 years since Cameron County had its last
legal execution.
It was on May 19, 1916 that the last executions took place
here.
“Hanged by the neck until they were dead” were Jose
Buenrostro and Melquiades Chapa. They
were hanged in the County Jail yard – “before sunset,” as the law required.
Justice – if it was justice – was swift in those days.
The two me – along with 10 others – were indicted by a
district court grand jury here on March 27 for the “bandit” killing of A.L
Austin during the train holdup.
The jurors unanimously found both men guilty of the murder
on April 13.
The term to make an appeal expired two days later, on April
15.
Little more than a month later Chapa and Buenrostro had been
hanged.
That is the legal story which emerges from the yellowing –
mostly handwritten – documents in the district clerk’s office here. But between the lines there are hints of
something less than legality.
Those were the days of “bandit troubles” when many persons
were blamed for things they didn’t do, when tempers ran swift, and when old
grudges and fueds were sometimes settled by charging the wrong men in a crime.
There is no way today of telling whether Buenrostro and
Chapa had a hand in shooting Austin to death.
But they were the only two indicted who were caught and tried.
The other 10 got away, into Mexico presumably.
The indictments maintain that Chapa and Buenrostro on Aug.6,
1915 “did unlawfully and with malice aforethought kill A.L. Austin by shooting
the said A.L. Austin with a gun.”
Both Chapa and Buerostro to the end maintained that they
hadn’t known one another before they met in the County Jail here after their
arrest.
Much less, they said, had they taken part in any killing.
There was nobody with a Spanish surname on the 12-man jury
that convicted Chapa and Buenrostro after a three-day trial.
Presumably both men were defended by attorneys. If so, the records don’t show who they were.
[Editors note: Their
attorney was Frank Cushman Pierce who arrived in Brownsville in 1904 and
“practiced law, organized and operated the Rio Grande Valley Abstract Company,
and became a genealogist.” He also
published A Brief History of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Many of his land grant records survived and
are in a vault at Market Square operated by historical association. He was also present, along with Morris Stein
of the Associated Press and Adolf Dittmann who was following events along the
border during the Mexican Revolution, when Dittmann filmed Lucio Blanco’s
troops near the border.]
Objections Overruled
At any rate, defense objections were pretty generally
overruled during the trial and the prosecution mostly got its way.
The district attorney had charged Buenrostro practically
admitted his guilt by trying to flee from Cameron County after the Aug., 1915
murder of Austin.
The defense sought to prove Buenrostro didn’t try to flee
the county and brought in witnesses who swore Buenrostro had been helping them
round up cattle a month after the murder.
The witnesses were Deputy Constable P.D. Haley and Deputy Sheriff George
Champion.
The state objected to this testimony as “irrelevant and immaterial”
and the judge sustained the objections.
The testimony showing that Buenrostro as late as January,
1916 – far from fleeing the country – had worked as camp cook for Haley who
wasn’t also admitted.
Robert Runyon photo
Chapa maintained all during the trial he wasn’t even near
the place where Austin was shot.
Even before jury foreman J.W. St. Clair brought in the
verdict, Chapa and Buenrostro must have has a pretty good idea that they’d had
it.
“We the jury find the defendants each guilty as charged in
the indictment and assess punishment of each at death,” St. Clair told the
court at the end of the trial on April 13, 1916.
Two days later – when no appeal had been made – the judge
ordered the execution set for May 19, 1916.
Robert Runyon photos
On that date, reads the judge’s order, Buenrostro and Chapa
were to be “taken by the sheriff to the place of execution … and there be
hanged by the neck until they are dead.”
Under state law the place of execution was the County Jail.
The judge’s order at the bottom shows the sheriff’s
verification of the execution on May 19, 1916.
The sheriff certifies that Buenrostro and Chapa were
executed “within the jail yard enclosing the jail in the City of Brownsville by
hanging (them) by the neck until (they were) dead.
“I did not execute the said warrant within the walls of the
County Jail,” the sheriff’s return adds, “… because the County Jail is not so
constructed that a gallows could have been erected (inside).”
Photograph of the 1912 Cameron County Jail in Brownsville, Texas. Portal to Texas History
The final document in the Chapa-Buenrostro file adds an
ironic touch – the other charges against both dead men were dismissed.
According to local legend Buenrostro’s body was still warm
when it was surrendered to relatives right after the hanging.
The relatives called in a doctor but efforts to revive
Buenrostro failed.
The public wasn’t allowed to watch the execution – probably because
a riot was feared.
The executioner became an outcast in Brownsville.
Confined jail yard space hidden by exterior wall where gallows was erected. Photograph of the 1912 Cameron County Jail in Brownsville, Texas. Portal to Texas History
from Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas By Stephen Harrigan
from War along the Border The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities
It looks like a Robert Runyon photo. The King Ranch was a frequent target for cow thieves. Rangers were called in to address the problem but as lawmen they oftentimes took the law into their own hands and killed indiscriminately. On postcards and in books these images were captioned without names of dead men but instead, they were simply referred to as "bandits". ---Javier Garcia [photo sent by Jose Davip]
One photo - two descriptions of it below
Version 11915 - Texas
Rangers on the King Ranch in South Texas with lassoes pulled around the bodies
of Jesús García, Mauricio García and Amado Muñoz. --- Jose Davip
Version 2
These three are Mexican Bandits of a group
of about 80 that attacked the Norias Ranch August 7 1915 . These bodies were
recovered and had been buried by the retreating bandits . A young boy had been
kidnapped from the ranch house after the attack by the bandits . During the
night he managed to escape and return to the ranch at daylight . He verified that
there were many wounded and they had to be tied to their saddles . 5 died that
night and were buried in the sand . This photo was staged after the odies were
recovered by ranch hands .
The Texas Rangers were not even at the
Norias Ranch during the attack because they and a contingent of Mounted Us
Calvary had ridden to the El Sauz Ranch about 25 miles away because it said
that the group of bandits were in the process of raiding it . They did not
return till my later after just over a dozen people at the ranch managed to
deter the raid after one of the bandit leaders was shot .
When I have more time I can
supply the names and identities of the people that were there that night . From
the information I have an old lady that was probably the grandmother of the
young boy and mother of one of the vaqueros was shot point blank when the
bandits broke into the ranch house to gain a vantage point on the ranch
defenders during the gunfight which lasted about 2 1/2 hours . --- Steve Rogers
