JULISSA QUESADA -3 yo and JOHN and MARY JANE RUBIO -14 Months and 2 Months (2003)- Edinburg TX

BROWNSVILLE — The capital murder trial of accused child killer John
Allen Rubio can move forward now that he has been found competent to
stand trial.
A Cameron County state jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Friday
before reaching a unanimous verdict that Rubio is competent to stand
trial for the slayings of three children in March 2003.
Rubio, 29, stood before visiting state District Judge Noe Gonzalez of Hidalgo County as the judge read the jury’s verdict.
“Mr. Rubio, at this time you have been found to be competent by a
jury in this county,” Gonzalez told the man. “We will proceed with
scheduling this case for trial on the merits.”
Rubio showed no emotion as the decision was read. Minutes later,
Cameron County bailiffs shackled him with chains and led him out of the
courtroom.
The competency trial was heard before Gonzalez in the 138th state District Court in Brownsville.
Rubio is accused of murdering the three children of his common-law
wife in Brownsville on March 11, 2003. The children were smothered,
stabbed and mutilated, according to Brownsville police investigators.
Their decapitated bodies were stuffed into trash bags.
Under the Texas Penal Code, an individual is deemed incompetent if
he doesn’t have the ability to consult with his attorneys with a
reasonable degree of understanding or if he lacks a rational and
factual understanding of the proceedings against him.
Because of a gag order in the case, the attorneys could not comment
about Friday’s jury decision. The judge also requested that the jurors
not give media interviews about the case.
“I ask that in order to ensure that Mr. Rubio, if he is tried in Cameron County, receives a fair trial,” Gonzalez told the jury.
The attorneys and the judge are set to discuss any pretrial matters at a status hearing scheduled for next week.
Gonzalez suggested that jury selection for the capital murder trial could begin as early as mid-April.
During last week’s opening arguments in the competency trial,
defense attorney Ed Stapleton said that although Rubio understood the
factual matters of the case, he saw the world differently than the
average person.
Stapleton said Rubio suffered from a delusional order and that his client believes he is “the chosen one.”
“He believes he is competent. He believes his reality is true,”
Stapleton said. “He believes he saved humanity. … that he’s a hero,
that he did the right thing.”
State prosecutors said Rubio has been faking the delusional disorder
and did not suffer from any mental illness and is competent to help his
attorneys in his defense.
Rubio’s defense team has already filed a motion indicating they will pursue an insanity defense in the capital murder trial.
Angela Camacho, 30, the common-law wife, pleaded guilty to three
counts of capital murder in July 2005 in the deaths of her children.
Authorities said Camacho gave Rubio the knife he used to behead the
children. She also was accused of holding down the children while they
were killed.
Rubio was convicted in November 2003 on three counts of capital
murder in the deaths of the children, Julissa Quesada, 3, John E.
Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months.
Rubio is the biological father of one of the children, Mary Jane.
He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity during the trial and was
sentenced to death. However, in September 2007 the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals reversed that conviction, thereby granting him a new
trial. In reaching that decision, the appellate court cited the
prosecution’s use in Rubio’s trial of videotaped testimony from
Camacho, who refused to testify in that trial.
Camacho did not have an attorney present when she gave the
videotaped testimony to police. Rubio’s defense attorneys also claimed
they were at a disadvantage because they were not able to challenge the
videotaped testimony.
Rubio remains incarcerated at the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito.

Edinburg TX (NE of McAllen) ---- Attorneys for a south Texas man charged with beheading his
common-law wife's three children in 2003 began his retrial Monday on
capital murder charges by focusing on his mental state.
John Allen Rubio, 29, was convicted in 2003 of capital murder for
killing the children, all under age 4, in Brownsville. A state appeals
court overturned Rubio's conviction and death sentence four years later
because statements from the children's mother, Angela Camacho,
erroneously were allowed into evidence.
Camacho pleaded guilty for her role in the slayings and is
serving a life sentence. Rubio has pleaded not guilty by reason of
insanity.
From the start, Rubio's attorneys made it clear that the trial
would be about his mental health.
"There's going to be no question about either the innocence or
the gruesomeness of this killing," Ed Stapleton, one of Rubio's lawyers,
told jurors.
But during their opening statements, prosecutors promised to show
Rubio knew right from wrong and made efforts to clean up the crime
scene.
"There was no delusion; he (Rubio) knew exactly what he was
doing," said Korinna Barraza, Cameron County assistant district
attorney. The retrial was moved to neighboring Hidalgo County because of
extensive publicity surrounding the case.
A number of expert witnesses were expected to testify on Rubio's
state of mind, but most of Monday was spent reviewing the grim details
of the crime for jurors.
On March 11, 2003, Brownsville Police Officer Efrain Cervantes
was responding to another call when Rubio's brother and a friend flagged
him down. They led him a short distance to the squalid, windowless
apartment Rubio and Camacho shared with the children.
Asked if that day stood out in his mind, Cervantes said, "That
was the day I found an infant without a head."
According to Cervantes' testimony, Rubio let him into the
apartment when he knocked. Camacho silently sat on a bed near the door,
Cervantes said.
The apartment was a step up for a family that had lived on a park
bench and in an abandoned building. The state had taken away the
children and returned them when Rubio and Camacho enrolled them in
government assistance programs.
Rubio had struggled through life, his attorneys said. He grew up
in a house where a stepfather beat his mother, said Rubio attorney Nat
Perez. His mother drank constantly, including while she was pregnant
with Rubio. He was enrolled in special education classes in elementary
school.
When Cervantes asked Rubio what was going on, he replied, "The
kids."
Down a short hall, Cervantes looked into a room with a crib and a
bed. On the bed he saw what at first he thought was a doll, on its back
with its knees drawn up toward its chest and its arms up. On closer
inspection he noticed jagged marks around the neck. There was no head.
Cervantes backed out and said, "What happened here?" Rubio put
his wrists together and said, "Arrest me."
The bodies of the other two children would be found later in
garbage bags in the apartment, Detective Chris Ortiz testified.
After seeing the first decapitated child — which he said he had
to touch to confirm it was a real body — Ortiz left but re-entered the
apartment when he heard a woman outside say the couple had more
children.
"I didn't think it could get worse than this," Ortiz said.
Brownsville Police Officer Michael Cadriel, now a Border Patrol
agent, drove Rubio to the police station. He testified that Rubio tried
to engage him in conversation.
"I cut my daughter's head off; she was looking at me like she was
possessed," Rubio told Cadriel.
The victims were 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E.
Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio.
Rubio, dressed in a white button-down shirt, dark slacks and
black frame glasses, gazed downward as the most graphic portions of the
crime scene video were played for jurors.
Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos is seeking
the death penalty for Rubio. Prosecution witnesses were scheduled to
resume testimony Tuesday morning.

A South Texas man accused of beheading his common-law wife's three
children was found guilty of capital murder Monday at his second trial.A
state appeals court had overturned John Allen Rubio's previous
conviction and death sentence in 2007, saying the children's mother had
wrongly been allowed to testify. A second jury deliberated for about
three hours before convicting him again.Rubio, 29, of
Brownsville, had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and his
defense attorneys had argued that the sheer brutality of the crime
showed he was not in his right mind. Defense attorney Nat Perez
described it during his closing argument as "overkill."Evidence
showed Rubio made increasingly ferocious attempts to kill the children,
strangling and stabbing them, then finally cutting off their heads.
Rubio initially said he killed the children, all under age 4, because
they were possessed.Police discovered the bodies of 3-year-old
Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane
Rubio on March 11, 2003, in a squalid Brownsville apartment.Rubio
was convicted on four counts of capital murder. Each death was covered
by one count, and the fourth count included all of them.The trial will now move to a punishment phase, in which prosecutors plan to again seek the death penalty.During
closing arguments given before a packed courtroom earlier Monday, both
sides showed enlarged photographs of the children from happier times.
Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos got the last word
and accentuated it by showing a photograph of a headless child and
making a chopping motion on the floor with a cleaver."This kind of crime tears at the fiber of who we are here in the Valley," Villalobos said.Testimony
showed Rubio had nailed the backdoor of the windowless apartment shut.
Prosecutors said it foretold of the killings to come, while the defense
claimed it was meant to keep demons out."These babies were not demons, they were angels," prosecutor Charles Mattingly said.Defense
attorney Ed Stapleton reminded jurors of Rubio's childhood — his
mother's prenatal drinking, his stepfather's abuse, his experience as a
teen prostitute. The defense team's psychiatrists found Rubio suffered
from paranoid schizophrenia."(Rubio) was insane from early on," Stapleton said. A prosecution expert rebutted that diagnosis Friday.

A south Texas jury sentenced John Allen Rubio to death on Thursday,
four days after convicting him of murder for beheading his common law
wife's three children in 2003. The jurors had deliberated for about four hours."I'm
sorry it all had to come to this," Rubio said in an open court. "I
thank the jury for giving me a chance to show what I could." It
was the second time the south Texas man has been sentenced to death for
the slayings. He was convicted of killing the children all under the
age of four - smothering, stabbing and ultimately decapitating them - in
a windowless Brownsville apartment. Gonzalez, who said
he had sentenced more people to death than any judge in south Texas,
said he recognized that a lot of people went through what Rubio did,
citing his abusive and troubled childhood. "I don't know what happened, but I know what this jury found," Gonzalez said. "I have never seen a crime like this." Jurors
on Monday found Rubio guilty on four counts of capital murder - one
charge for each child and one for the children together. Rubio
was previously convicted of the murders in 2003 and sentenced to death.
But a state appeals court overturned his conviction in 2007 because
statements from the children's mother, Angela Camacho, were wrongly
allowed as evidence during the trial. Camacho pleaded guilty and is
serving a life sentence for her role in the slayings. At his current trial, Rubio pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury rejected that defense. Attorney Larry Warner, who will be
representing Rubio in his appeal, says that Rubio's appeal of the
verdict is automatic.
"The appeal is automatic, you don't
even have to file the notice of appeal," said Warner. It could take, he
said, four or five months for the case to reach the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals, and once there, the nine judges will determine if the
conviction and sentence should stand.
Rubio attorney Ed Stapleton said the result saddened him. "I've gotten to know this man over the last three years, so to think
of him dying on a gurney is very difficult," Stapleton said. Texas
executes by lethal injection. "He misses those children more than anyone else alive," Stapleton said. "I think there's a special place in hell for Mr. Rubio," said Cameron County prosecutor Charles Mattingly.

Convicted child killer John Allen Rubio was back in court on Monday
morning, this time in Cameron County for his formal sentencing hearing.
Wearing his customary white shirt and black slacks, Rubio went before 370th state
District Court Judge Noe Gonzalez for the post-trial hearing. For the
first time since the trial, Rubio wore shackles during the hearing.
Last week, a Hidalgo County jury recommended that Rubio be executed
via lethal injection after he was found guilty of four counts of capital
murder for the murders of his common-law wife Angela Camacho’s three
children, Julissa Quesada, 3, John Esteban Rubio, 14 months, and Mary
Jane Rubio, 2 months, in 2003.
Gonzalez briefly stated that the sentencing documents had been
changed to address a technicality. He said that Rubio would only be
sentenced to death three times for the murders of the children because
the fourth count was only a combination of the murders.
Gonzalez then sentenced Rubio to death on counts one, two and three.
“I have signed the judgement Mr. Rubio,” Gonzalez said. “I said my peace
on Thursday I have nothing else to say on that matter.”
After the sentencing, the judge notified Rubio that Nat C. Perez Jr.
and Ed Stapleton would not be his attorneys for the appeal process. The
representation for the process will fall on the hands of William Hubbard
from McAllen and on David A. Schulman from Austin.
During the hearing, McAllen area attorney Jonathan Ball stood in for
Hubbard stating that he was out of town. Ball asked Gonzalez if they
could hold Rubio in Cameron County for 10 days to allow time for Hubbard
to return and meet with Rubio.
Gonzalez then ordered that Rubio be held at the Carrizalez-Rucker
Detention Center until Aug. 11. He will then be transferred to the
Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where he will be housed on death row.