Texas man decapitates his 3 young children, tells cops they were possessed by evil spirits. 23 years later, he’s finally been executed

In 2003, John Allen Rubio and his common-law wife, Angela Camacho, were charged with the murders of three young children in a Brownsville apartment. His initial conviction was overturned in 2007, but a second jury found him guilty in 2010 and again sentenced him to death. On Thursday night, over 23 years after the murders, Rubio was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Texas.

The victims were Camacho’s children: three-year-old Julissa Angela Quezada, one-year-old John Esteban Rubio, and two-month-old Mary Jane Rubio, who was Rubio’s biological daughter. The children were stabbed and decapitated sometime after midnight on March 11, 2003, after he believed they were possessed by evil spirits.

Rubio told ABC in May that it began when his three-year-old stepdaughter started behaving strangely. “She was telling me she was my grandmother, so she was acting weird,” said Rubio. “She was screaming in a weird way, and she was not herself.” He added, “I miss them so much. Every day I miss them.”

He killed their pet hamsters first

According to court documents, Rubio met Camacho through her live-in boyfriend at the time, with whom he inhaled spray paint. The two eventually began dating and moved in together with Camacho’s then one-year-old daughter, Julissa. They later had two children together, John and Mary Jane, though it is unclear whether Rubio was John’s father.

The family struggled financially, at one point living on the streets before moving in with Rubio’s mother. Child Protective Services temporarily took custody of the two older children after Rubio was found inhaling spray paint in front of them, but later returned the children.

Rubio lost his job at Golden Corral in December 2002, a month before Mary Jane was born. He turned to sex work to support the family. Facing possible eviction, Rubio decided to take the children to a local homeless shelter on the day before the murders.

Later that night, Rubio noticed his hamsters behaving strangely and killed them. After Julissa awoke to the sound, Rubio became convinced that the children were possessed and killed his daughters first. As per Camacho’s testimony recounted in 2012 court documents, Rubio allegedly forced her to have sex with him before killing their surviving son, John.

During Rubio’s competency hearing last month, a woman identified as the children’s aunt was escorted out of the courtroom after shouting obscenities at him, ABC reports. “You killed my nephews,” she shouted. “You’re going to meet your father, the Devil, that day.”

Angela Camacho pleaded guilty to the murder of her children in 2005 as part of a plea deal that spared her from the death penalty. She received three concurrent life sentences and is expected to be eligible for parole in 2045. The apartment complex where the children were murdered was demolished in 2016. In December 2017, Tres Angeles Park was built on the site in their memory. ABC reported that a candlelight vigil was held at the park at the time of Rubio’s execution.

In another high-profile execution for the state of Texas, Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3. Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in a 2009 mass shooting.