Career
She was the first woman to be put to death by the state of Texas. A century later, on June 13, 1985, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution noting that Rodriguez did not receive a fair trial. She has been the subject of two operas, numerous books, newspaper articles, and magazine accounts.
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 Nueces 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. 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, "Number 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.