A Texas man convicted of fatally stabbing and decapitating three young children in a squalid, windowless apartment in 2003 was executed Thursday evening, hours after Oklahoma put another man to death.
John Allen Rubio, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. after a lethal injection at Huntsville State Prison. The murders of the little girl and two young children so shook the town of Brownsville, on the US border with Mexico, that the building was later demolished and the land transformed into a community park and garden.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP 
After a spiritual advisor briefly prayed for him, Rubio thanked his friends and family for their “love and understanding” and said he was “not the same person I once was.” He thanked prison staff for teaching him how to find God and also expressed his love for his common-law wife, Angela Camacho, who is serving a life sentence for her role in the murders.
“I want to say I’m sorry to my wife’s family,” he said. “I can’t change the past, but I can tell you that my life is going to be over. But that’s not going to make you happy.”
“I will soon be with my children,” he added. “I am ready to go to heaven to be with my lord and savior.”
As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began to take effect, Rubio took three breaths and began what sounded like snoring. Afterwards, all movement stopped and a doctor pronounced him dead 21 minutes after the injection began.
3 young children beheaded in Texas
Rubio and his girlfriend, Angela Camacho, were charged with the murders of Julissa Quesada, 3, John E. Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months, in the squalid, windowless apartment they shared in Brownsville, located on Texas’ border with Mexico.
Camacho pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.
Rubio’s first capital murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court, which ruled that Camacho’s statements were improperly admitted as evidence in his trial. Rubio again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity during his second trial, but he was again found guilty and sentenced to death.
Rubio, according to court records, was not the biological father of the two older children, but he treated them as if they were his own.
On several occasions, Rubio claimed that the children were possessed and that he was the “chosen one” destined to save the world. Defense experts diagnosed Rubio as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a determination rejected by prosecution experts.
Defense experts testified that his childhood — filled with violence at home, “toxic” parents, drug use and prostitution — affected him developmentally.
The building where the children were killed was later demolished and the land transformed into a park and community garden.
Texas prison spokeswoman Amanda Hernandez described Rubio as talkative and seemingly at ease when he arrived at the Huntsville Unit prison, where the executions take place. She said he took a nap in the van that brought him to Huntsville from the prison that houses Death Row, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) to the east.
Oklahoma man put to death
An Oklahoma man was put to death Thursday for fatally shooting his girlfriend’s ex-husband as he arrived to pick up her two young children before Thanksgiving. This is the first in a series of executions planned for Thursday in the United States.
James Pavatt, 73, received a lethal injection at the McAlester State Penitentiary. His breathing did not appear labored during the execution and he was pronounced unconscious approximately six minutes before being pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. CST.
In Texas, John Allen Rubio was scheduled to be executed Thursday evening. The 46-year-old was convicted of fatally stabbing and decapitating three young children in 2003 in Brownsville, a border town with Mexico.
Even as the death penalty receives renewed attention following the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee in September, the United States is on track to exceed 40 executions for the second year in a row – a pace driven by Florida.
Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he would commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office, in what experts say would be the largest mass pardon in American history.
Former Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip pleaded guilty Thursday to a lesser charge of complicity in a 1997 murder and awaits sentencing in December. Glossip, who had been on the verge of execution three times, was released on bail in May after spending nearly 30 years in prison. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction and he awaits a retrial.
Oklahoma advertising man killed in garage
When Pavatt was asked if he had any final words, he shook his head no. As a chaplain read him from a Bible, he appeared to speak a few words, but they could not be heard.
Pavatt was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the 2001 death of Rob Andrew, a 39-year-old advertising executive. Pavatt attended the same church as the Andrew family and had an affair with Rob Andrew’s wife, Brenda Andrew. She was convicted in a separate trial and is currently the only woman on death row in Oklahoma.
Weeks before the shooting, Rob Andrew told police that someone was trying to kill him after his car’s brake lines were cut. Brenda Andrew told police after her husband’s death that masked intruders shot him in the arm and shot him.
Pavatt and Brenda Andrew traveled to Mexico with her two children after the shooting and were arrested three months later while returning to the United States.
At a clemency hearing last month, Pavatt said he was “not guilty of shooting anyone,” that he had fallen in love with Brenda Andrew and believed “everything she told me.”
“It wasn’t until my trial that I began to realize the extent to which I had been manipulated by Brenda,” Pavatt told the court. “I understand why the jury believed we were both involved in Rob’s murder.”
Prosecutors said Pavatt and Brenda Andrew conspired to kill her husband and that no matter who fired the shots, both were equally guilty.
No family members of Rob Andrew or Pavatt witnessed the execution, although his daughter and her husband had visited him the night before, a prison spokesman said.
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