Posted on 07/27/2010 7:20:29 AM PDT by laotzu
A Texas man who once claimed to be ‘God’s chosen one’ was found guilty of three counts of capital murder this afternoon for beheading his girlfriend’s three young children in what he claimed was an effort to expel evil spirits from their bodies.
John Allen Rubio, 29, of Brownsville, now faces the possibility of a death sentence when jurors reconvene later this week for the punishment phase of the trial, which has been the talk of the Rio Grande Valley.
Rubio’s lawyers said the well dressed bespectacled defendant was a paranoid schizophrenic when he methodically killed Julissa Quesada, 3, John E. Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months, in March of 2003. It was Rubio’s second conviction for the crime, the first guilty verdict and the death penalty was thrown out by an appeals court in 2007.
“The viciousness of this act, of this crime, I think, shows that this man was not in his right mind,” defense attorney Nat C. Perez told the jury in closing arguments. “I think even the state will agree this was overkill.”
Central to the prosecution’s case was Rubio’s chilling confession, provided to police in his hometown of Brownsville shortly after the bodies were found in the run down apartment he shared with Angela Camacho, the mother of the victims.
“I cut first the little one,” Rubio says calmly in the video taped confession, refering to the murder of Julissa. “I cut her chest, five or six times, and then I turned her over and laid her on her stomach, and started chopping her.” He began making a chopping motion to the back of his neck with his hand.
“It took a while, like five, ten minutes,” he said. “She was screaming, growling.”
Rubio said he was convinced that spirits inhabited the bodies of the children, and he said he yelled at them, ‘get out, get out!’
He calmly described killing Julissa, then killing Mary Jane, and then cleaning and washing the little bodies, and talking to them, saying ’I’m sorry, I had to do this.’ All the while, John lay sleeping in his crib, after Rubio had given him a baby bottle.
“But I knew what I had to do,” he said. He took a shower, and then caressed the heads of the babies, saying ‘goodbye for the last time,’ before killing the little boy.
After killing the girls but before killing the boy, Rubio told the detectives that he and Camacho ‘had sexual relations’ because he thought that was ‘the last time they would be together.’ Later in the confession, Rubio said the ‘kissing’ took place after all three children had been beheaded.
Camacho has already been convicted of murder for her role in the killings, and she testified for the prosecution wearing a bright orange prison jump suit.
Police say they found steak knives, two large kitchen knives, and a meat cleaver in the house. It took jurors less than four hours this afternoon to find Rubio guilty of capital murder. The jury could have found him not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity.
Prosecutor Chuck Mattingly told the jury Rubio’s actions that day were calculated, not the actions of an insane person.
“He looked at these three children as obstacles to starting his life over,” Mattingly said.
Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos agreed.
“This man was manipulative,” he said. “He was not insane at the time of these murders.”
Dear God I am sorry I read his confession! So the mother was there while he did this, has she been charged with anything?
I avoid supporting or visiting porn websites simply because there is a lot of molestation going on and many of those women end up killing babies. Sometimes they admit to it on camera.
Oh, aye. Charged with murder. Currently serving three life sentences.
In the interests of full disclosure; I like looking at naked women.
When was there a better time?
I don’t know Soothesayer, but I do know a few people who have expressed similar thoughts of dispair and futility.
For me, it all comes back to religious faith. For an individual with no belief in an afterlife, this world can be depressing and spirit-crushing.
For those who believe in an afterlife, like myself, we see this world as a trial. A test.
Passing the test doesn’t require seeing an end to abortion or the complete elimination of harm to innocents like that describe in this article.
Passing the test only requires doing all in your power to defeat such evil. If it were within our power to make the world a perfect place, it wouldn’t be a test at all.
I do understand why some people decide against having children. At times, this world seems more evil than good.
But having raised 3 children, the good has far outweighed the bad. They are happy children, and we are happy parents. We are fairing pretty well in our test, and continue to look forward to an eternity in paradise together.
Until that time, we are each soldiers of Christ.
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