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rHANGING OF TWO MEXICAN BANDITS AT BROWNSVILLE TODAY WAS FIRST. i'' \ %BROWNSVILLE, Tex.,. .1Uy 1— The first legal execution, of alleged Mexican bandits, as penalty for the American lives lost in the borderraids in the Brownsville'county last' •summer and fall, took place at 2:30 today, with the hanging of Jose Buen-rostro, aged 23, and Melquiyades Chapa, aged 25, Mexicans, convicted of the killing of A. L. Austin and his ! son Charles. Austin was president of the Law and Order League at Sebastian, Cameron county.The Mexicans were indicted fortj murder on March 27, and were found guilty and sentenced to death about I three weeks later.j The crime for which the two men ! were convicted was one of the outstanding events in the border raids in which civilians only were concerned. On August 6, 1915, when the so-j called “Texas Revolution’* alleged to I have been directed by Aniceto Pizana, now in the Matamoros* Mexico, coun-j ty jail, and his partner, Luis de la ; Rosa, was about to reach its height, j Mexican marauders raided the little! town of Sebastian, near Lyford. There *' were fourteen in Ihe party. They I looted the general store, and amid. j firing from citizens, escaped to the■country district. They went to the Austin home, several miles away, and, forcing them to deliver their arms, shot and killed the elder Austin and his son.(s»IHad iteie men not, for some unknown reason, \ spared ■ the lives of El more Millard; R. L. Smith and T. J. Alexander, all residing in Sebastian, or vicinity, and all of whom the Mexicans had as completely in their-power as | the Austins, Chapa and Buenrostro j probably never would have gone to i1 trial. The testimony offered by them was considered weighty.Chapa and Buenrostro were arrested in November on charges of theft It was not* suspected'at the time that they were implicated in the border raids. At the time of the arrests thirteen other Mexicans were held in the Cameron county jail in connection with the raids.Millard, Smith and Alexander were asked by ttie sheriff to visit the jail, and identify if possible, any of the thirteen. Of those, it was said, they were familiar with none. However,Milard and Smith, officers declared,- • ♦recognized Buenrostro and Chapa, and Alexander said he remembered the former- $s the Mexican who rifled the cash drawer in the Sebastian general store. At the trial, both Mexicans4 . 1attempted to prove alibis.Unless Governor Ferguson should | intervene, the execution set for today | will be the second and third legal hangings in Cameron county. The first was in 18S2 when Quirino Guitan 1 paid the death penalty for the murder * of a hack driver.
Newspaper Details
Brownwood Daily Bulletin
Brownwood, Texas, US
Fri, May 19, 1916
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
TX, USA 15 May 2020
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