Judge Benjamin Neal instead sentenced Chipita to die. Silvera was given five years of prison labor. The hanging was on a Friday, Nov. 13. Two Christian women took pity on Chipita and brought her fresh water. They helped her bathe and do her hair, and one of them gave her a blue cotton dress to wear.
Legends say dark clouds rolled off the Gulf of Mexico and blotted out the sun.
The hangman disappeared. Lightning struck the tree. Legends say Chipita was alive when they buried her. So fantastic are the stories that Chipita overshadows the two other Texas women executed before her. Her crime was killing a white man, probably her owner, by bashing in his head with an ax.