LOCAL EVENTS
With the rich history of this town, there are a ton of buildings and landmarks with spooky stories. Wineaux owner Peggy Jones hosted a walking ghost tour that was a scintillating combination of knowledge, ghouls and great wine.
Jones dressed as Becky Rogers, also known as the Flapper Bandit, who was once housed at the historic Hays County Jail behind the Calaboose museum.
“I went up to Round Rock, and I set a house on fire across from the bank in Round Rock. Well, I thought everybody would run out. I would just skedaddle on in there and pick up my loot and run on out. Well, guess what? Nobody left. So that spoiled my plan,” Jones said, pretending to be Rogers. “What I did then is I got in my car, and I drove down to a bank in Buda. I got my handy dandy gun, and I walked in there. I had a nice conversation with a couple of local businessmen, and then I held them up. I got $1,000, and, wouldn't you know it, my car got stuck in the mud on the way out. That was a terrible thing, so I hitched a ride back into Austin and got somebody to bring me back down. They recognized that it was my car, and they arrested me. I ended up down here, but all the jailers and all the men on the jury thought that I was just adorable. So they let me go. They dismissed all the charges.”
The tour stopped across the street from Sewell Park where Jones told the story of the pirate Alonso De Leon, who headed to San Marcos in search of the headwaters in 1688. Jean Gery, his wife Genevieve Gery and their daughter Isabelle traveled with De Leon, and the family established a cabin in the woods near the headwaters.
“Well, something happened to Jean, and Isabelle was left with only her mother Genevieve,” Jones said. “There were some settlers around here, probably Catholic missionaries, and they decided for some reason that Genevieve Gery was a witch. So they charged her and her daughter with blasphemy, heresy and witchcraft. They decided that she was consorting with the devil. They took the two women, Genevieve and Isabelle, hung them and then burned them alive — pretty gruesome.”
There were continued sightings of the two women after their death.
“Since then every Catholic mission that was attempted to be built in and around this area failed. It was either from drought, from Indian attack, from blight or disease. Children were dying, unexplained. They would see ghosts of children walking around anywhere from down on the eastside of San Marcos… all the way up into this area,” Jones said. “They're saying that Genevieve caused a curse to be placed on any Catholic missionary of Mexican descent as retribution for what they did to her. They say that she is still wandering around abducting and killing the children, and it is still happening today.”
The tour then moved to the Texas State theater building. Jones said it is known for paranormal activity because it is completely surrounded by water, which holds the spirits in.
“This building is known for Ramsey Yelvington,” Jones said. “He was a professor and playwright here in the early 70s. In 1973, just a few days after his final performance of “The Folklorist,” it is said that he hung himself inside the building. He's blamed for turning the lights on and off periodically, messing with the new students when they come in.”
Jones stopped at the historic Hays County Jail on Fredericksburg Street to tell the group about Anna Hauptreif, also known as the Texas Black Widow, who was an inmate there and was the first female serial killer.
“She was up there in this front window with her one year old baby until they took the baby away on Halloween morning in the wee hours, 100 years ago. Tonight, after midnight, she hanged herself from the bars in that jail, in that room,” Jones said. “She was going to be the first woman serial killer in the state of Texas to receive the penalty of death by the electric chair. The electric chair came into being in Feb. 1924. The first men that were put to death in Huntsville were in the electric chair in February, and she was going to be the first woman. She was the only female serial killer at that point. … She admitted to killing her first husband, the four children of her second husband, and she got caught when she tried to murder the second husband.”
For more information on Hauptreif, Jones wrote a book, Mourning Murderess, that goes into greater detail of her crimes. The book is on sale at Wineux and can be purchased on Kindle and Amazon as well.
