Child killer asks to be executed
A Texan who confessed to suffocating, stabbing and beheading his common-law wife’s three young children told a judge today he wants to be executed.
“Do you understand what you are asking for?” Judge Robert Garza asked John Allen Rubio.
“Yes sir,” Rubio responded.
Rubio, 23, and his common-law wife, Angela Camacho, told police they killed three-year-old Julissa, one-year-old John Esthefan and two-month-old Mary Jane because they thought the children were possessed and they did not want them to grow up evil.
Camacho, a Mexican, is awaiting a hearing on whether she is mentally competent to stand trial.
Rubio and his lawyer Alfredo Padilla asked for the death penalty moments after prosecutors began their opening statements in the penalty phase of the trial in Brownsville, Texas.
Prosecutor Karen Betancourt said Rubio deserved the death penalty because he was a continuing threat to society.
“Is it your belief that God has forgiven you and you want to be with your children in heaven?” Padilla asked. Rubio said he did.
Jurors who rejected insanity pleas now must decide whether he should be sentenced to death or face life in prison.
Rubio’s lawyers said he came from a background of poverty, substance abuse and witchcraft, and argued that he was legally insane at the time the children were killed.
