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Texas executes John Allen Rubio for killing three children he helped raise
John Allen Rubio, 46, was put to death by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, on Thursday evening for the 2003 killings of three children, ages 3, 1 and 2 months, in Brownsville.
John Allen Rubio, 46, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, for the 2003 killings of three young children he helped raise. He was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. local time, 21 minutes after the injection began shortly after 6 p.m. The execution was reported by the Associated Press.
Rubio, of Brownsville, was convicted of killing the children, who were 3, 1 and 2 months old. The crimes took place on March 11, 2003, inside a windowless apartment. Rubio was not the biological father of the two older children. His common-law wife, Angela Camacho, was prosecuted alongside him. Camacho pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence, and the case against her ended without a trial of her own.
At trial, Rubio's defense raised an insanity plea and argued that his mental state at the time of the killings should excuse him. Defense experts diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. Prosecution experts disputed that diagnosis. Rubio reportedly told investigators that the children were possessed and that he was the « chosen one ». The defense also described a troubled childhood marked by violence, drug use and prostitution, arguing that these experiences shaped the man who was convicted.
In his final statement, Rubio apologized to his wife's family and spoke of his faith. He said he was going to be with his children. His death came as the second of two executions in the United States scheduled for Thursday. Earlier in the day, James Pavatt, 73, was executed in Oklahoma for the 2001 killing of his partner's estranged husband, a case that also drew attention to capital punishment on the same day.
The apartment building where the killings took place has since been demolished. The site is now a community park and garden, a change that marks the end of the physical setting of a case that remained among the most disturbing in the region for years.
Source: foxnews.com
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