Their verdict was predictable: “The deceased met their end on the upper San Lorenzo bridge at the hands of parties unknown.” Emphasis added. The bodies of the two men, Francisco Arias and José Chamales, were taken to a local undertaker, where five Santa Cruzans were impaneled as an impromptu coroner’s jury.
“Judge Lynch had evidently been holding court,” the Santa Cruz Sentinel observed in the aftermath, “but who the Judge, jury or attorneys were was purely a matter of conjecture.” The remaining spectators, including children, called out bids for pieces of the death ropes, which had been sliced into foot-long sections as souvenirs.
It was well into mid-morning before the bodies were finally removed. A large crowd had gathered on the banks of the San Lorenzo River and down onto a sandbar to gape at the hanging corpses-victims of an angry lynch mob the night before. By the time the sun rose on Thursday morning, May 3, 1877, the two bodies dangling from what was then known as the “Upper” or Water Street Bridge were already stiff with rigor mortis.
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