John Allen Rubio was put to death Thursday after more than two decades of court proceedings over the 2003 Brownsville killings.
HUNTSVILLE, TX — Texas executed John Allen Rubio by lethal injection Thursday evening for the 2003 murders of three young children in Brownsville, carrying out a death sentence after courts rejected his final efforts to stop the execution.
Rubio, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. He had been convicted of capital murder in the deaths of 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio. The case lasted more than two decades and included an overturned conviction, a second trial and repeated challenges involving Rubio’s mental health and Texas’ execution procedures.
The three children were killed in Brownsville on March 11, 2003. Texas Department of Criminal Justice records say Rubio and his co-defendant, Maria Angela Camacho, fatally stabbed and beheaded the children. Rubio told investigators after his arrest that he believed the children were possessed. Camacho, his common-law wife, was also convicted for her role in the killings and received three life sentences.
Rubio was first convicted and sentenced to death in 2003. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned that conviction in 2007 after finding that prosecutors improperly relied on out-of-court statements from Camacho after she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Rubio was tried again in 2010 and was convicted a second time after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. He was again sentenced to death.
Mental health questions remained central to Rubio’s later appeals. His lawyers argued that he had a long history of serious mental illness and challenged testimony presented during his second trial. Defense experts had diagnosed Rubio with paranoid schizophrenia, while prosecutors disputed conclusions that would have prevented his execution. A judge determined in October that Rubio was competent to be executed.
On Nov. 5, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a request to stop the execution and denied a habeas petition in which Rubio’s lawyers argued that prosecutors had knowingly presented or failed to correct false testimony from a mental health expert during the 2010 trial. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also declined to recommend clemency before the scheduled execution.
Rubio and another Texas death row prisoner, Reinaldo Dennes, separately challenged the state’s lethal injection process. Their lawsuit questioned Texas’ supply of pentobarbital, the drug used in executions, including claims about whether the drug had expired or had been prepared through unreliable compounding practices. Their effort to obtain emergency relief was unsuccessful. The Supreme Court of Texas denied a petition and emergency motion involving Rubio and Dennes on Wednesday, one day before Rubio’s execution.
Before his death, Rubio expressed remorse and thanked relatives and prison staff, according to an Associated Press account of the execution. His execution was the eighth carried out by Texas in 2026 and came the same day Oklahoma executed James Pavatt in a separate murder case.
Texas has another execution scheduled for Nov. 19. Dennes, who was convicted in Harris County in connection with a deadly robbery, remains scheduled for lethal injection. Three additional Texas executions are listed for 2027.
Author note: Last updated November 13, 2026.