John Allen Rubio is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Texas on Thursday, November 12, following his conviction for the 2003 killings of three children in his family’s apartment in Brownsville.
The victims were three-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and two-month-old Mary Jane Rubio. The children were killed and decapitated inside the apartment on March 11, 2003.
In an interview with KRGV, Rubio claimed that he witnessed strange occurrences in the days leading up to the killings, which made him believe someone was practising witchcraft against his family.
He alleged that Julissa had started claiming to be his grandmother, a development that reportedly frightened him because he had previously dreamt that his grandmother had possessed the little girl.
Rubio said his brother discovered the children’s bodies inside plastic bags beside the beds the following day and alerted the police.
Meanwhile, Rubio’s wife, Angela Camacho, gave three different explanations for the killings. In one account, she said the couple believed the children were possessed. In another, she claimed they could not afford to raise them, while a third account attributed the killings to a combination of financial difficulties and their beliefs about possession.
Prosecutors, however, rejected Rubio’s explanation. Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz described the case as the worst he had encountered in his career.
Rubio was initially convicted and sentenced to death in 2003, but an appeals court overturned the conviction in 2007.
He was subsequently retried, convicted again on August 2, 2010, and sentenced to death for a second time.
Camacho pleaded guilty to three capital charges connected to the children’s deaths in 2005 and is serving a life sentence. She will become eligible for parole in 2043.
Speaking ahead of his scheduled execution, Rubio expressed his readiness to die, saying he hoped to reunite with his children and God.
“Now that I have an execution date, I’m ready to be with my children, I’m ready to be with God. I know they know the truth; I adored my children,” he said.
