John Allen Rubio scheduled for Thursday execution

T he father who murdered three children 23 years ago in one of the Rio Grande Valley’s most infamous crimes is set to be executed by the state on Thursday.

Barring a last-minute stay, John Allen Rubio, 46, will die by lethal injection in the state’s execution chamber in Huntsville.

His execution brings to a conclusion a judicial process that covered more than two decades, including two jury trials and multiple appeals.

“For more than two decades, this case has remained a painful reminder of one of the most heinous crimes our community has ever witnessed,” Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said in a statement following Rubio’s latest appeal.

On March 11, 2003, Rubio and his common law wife Angela Camacho, killed their three children: Julissa, 2, John, 1, and Mary Jane, 2 months old. Of the three, only Mary Jane was Rubio’s biological child, though witnesses testified the five lived as a struggling family in Brownsville.

“These three babies were robbed of their lives before they ever had the opportunity to experience the world,” Saenz said in the statement. “Julissa, John, and Mary Jane deserve to be remembered, and we will never forget them. Justice has been delayed for far too long.”

What officers discovered that night at a run-down apartment building on the corner of E. Tyler Street and Eighth Street many in Brownsville and the wider Rio Grande Valley might recall: the children were suffocated, stabbed and decapitated.

“I remember back in that time. It was horrible,” said Veronica Pisharodi, a longtime Brownsville resident. “I didn’t realize that it had been so long. I wish justice had been done a long time ago.”

Maggie Martinez, a resident who remembers meeting Rubio and Camacho and their kids once, said her thoughts ahead of the execution are with the children.

“They could have lived a normal life,” she said. “I believe in the justice for the children.”

Even though neither Rubio nor Camacho denied the killings, the legal process that followed was meticulous and slow. Camacho pleaded guilty in order to avoid a potential death sentence. Rubio pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His defense argued that he suffered from delusions, drug use and social afflictions that contributed to the crime.

In 2003, a Cameron County jury convicted Rubio on four counts of capital murder — one for each child and one for the children as a group. Shortly after he was sentenced to death. But while Rubio began his life on death row, so did years more of court proceedings.

In 2007, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the convictions after finding that statements from Camacho had been improperly admitted into the trial.

A second trial in 2010 — this one held in Hidalgo County — heard much of the same evidence and ended the same way. A guilty verdict and a death sentence.

The following 16 years included multiple appeals which were all rejected. The latest appeal, filed in late October, argued that Rubio’s due process under the Fourteenth Amendment was violated, alleging that the state had failed to correct false testimony from one of its mental health experts.

The same court that once had overturned Rubio’s convictions (and later reaffirmed the convictions from the second trial) denied the motion on Nov. 5.

Outside of the court system, Rubio filed a clemency petition with the State Board of Pardons and Parole several weeks ago. The board denied the petition on Tuesday, the Cameron County District Attorney’s office said.

Under the procedures of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Rubio will have the opportunity to have five witnesses at his execution, including people like family, friends or spiritual advisors.

The family of the victims are also allowed to witness. During a recent competency hearing for Rubio, a woman who identified herself as an aunt to two of the children yelled and cursed at Rubio in court and said she would watch him die. It’s unconfirmed who any of the witnesses might be.

According to the TDCJ protocol, a last meal will be served around 5 p.m., and the execution will happen sometime after 6 p.m.

Attorneys for Rubio did not respond to requests for comment.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new information.

Here’s the latest update:

Notorious child killer John Allen Rubio dies by lethal injection

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