Execution set for Brownsville man in murder of three small children

A Brownsville man convicted of killing three children is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening in the first of two Texas death sentences set to be carried out in the next week.

John Rubio, 46, was convicted in 2003 for stabbing and beheading three small children: Rubio’s two kids, 2-month old Mary Jane Rubio and 1-year-old John Esteban Rubio, as well as his common-law wife’s 3-year old daughter, Julissa Angela Quezada. Rubio told law enforcement he believed the children were possessed, according to court records.

Rubio’s wife, Angela Camacho, was given three life sentences for her role in the murders.

Rubio’s conviction was overturned in 2007 after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found prosecutors improperly relied on out-of-court statements Camacho made prior to her invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. A second jury found Rubio guilty in 2010 after he pleaded not guilty by insanity.

The criminal appeals court on Nov. 5 denied his latest appeal, which argued prosecutors’ expert psychiatric witness gave false testimony about Rubio’s mental health history.

Rubio also attempted to halt his execution by suing the state in August alongside LeJames Norman, a death row inmate who was executed Sept. 16. The lawsuit asked a Travis County district judge to block Texas’ use of pentobarbital, the drug used for lethal injections, arguing that the state’s supply had expired or was created through unreliable means at third-party compounding facilities. That lawsuit was unsuccessful.

If carried out, Rubio would be the eighth man executed in 2026. One additional execution is scheduled this year. Reinaldo Dennes, convicted in 1997 for a deadly robbery in Houston, is set to be put to death Nov. 19.

There are currently three executions set for 2027.