John Rubio is scheduled to die by execution on November 12 in Texas, 23 years, 8 months and 1 day after he and Angela Camacho beheaded their three young children — a toddler and two infants — in a Brownsville apartment. His attorneys say he suffers from mental health problems, and they are racing to stop a punishment they argue the state has no legal right to carry out.
Rubio was convicted of capital murder in 2003 and again at a 2010 retrial, with his attorneys offering an insanity defense both times, according to The Austin Chronicle. Two psychiatrists testified that Rubio was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the murders and did not know his actions were wrong, the paper reports. Rubio believed he was one of seven good men on Earth locked in a struggle against an equal number of bad men, and told Camacho as much; he also believed his children had been possessed by the spirit of his dead grandmother, whom he thought was a witch.
Hours after the killings, Rubio's brother and a friend discovered the children's bodies and alerted law enforcement. Rubio and Camacho surrendered to police shortly afterward. A 2024 appeal described a chilling detail from before the murders: Rubio passed an egg over his daughter Julissa, cracked it into a glass of water, and concluded she had been attacked by evil spirits, per the same appeal cited by the Chronicle.
A Legal Standard That Worked Against Him
Texas law requires a jury to find that a defendant was unaware at the time of his crime that his actions were illegal — not merely immoral — in order to establish insanity, the Chronicle reports. Prosecutors argued at trial that Rubio's defense had not met that bar, and a prosecution psychiatrist disputed that he had schizophrenia or any other brain disease. The jury sided with the prosecution both times.
A 2024 appeal argued that Rubio's defense attorneys never even asked the psychiatrists whether Rubio knew the murders were illegal — a gap his current lawyers say amounted to an ineffective defense, with his trial attorneys reportedly admitting as much. That appeal also raised fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, arguing Rubio's original attorneys should have suspected it given that they knew his mother had used drugs during her pregnancy with him. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder can cause brain damage and mental illness and can make an offender less culpable, the appeal contends.
Rubio's current attorneys have also argued that the 2010 retrial omitted evidence that he had been heavily medicated with Thorazine, Risperdal and various antidepressants since entering death row in 2003, and that he was held at a prison for mentally ill inmates at various points. They have asked federal courts to reassess whether he received a fair trial. The judge handling one of those appeals opined that Rubio might have received life without parole rather than a death sentence had that option been available to the jury at the time — Texas enacted the life-without-parole sentencing option after Rubio's trial — but ultimately rejected the appeal anyway.
Competency Fight Heads to the Court of Criminal Appeals
The legal battle has intensified in recent weeks. A judge found Rubio competent to be executed on October 7, but that ruling had to be reviewed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals before his scheduled execution could proceed, according to the San Antonio Express-News. On Oct. 28, Rubio's defense team filed a motion alleging that prosecutors used false testimony from forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner during the 2010 retrial, KRGV reports.
Cameron County prosecutors have since asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reject that motion, the same station notes. Separately, Rubio's attorneys argue that his ongoing mental illness leaves him without a rational understanding of his death sentence; a 44-page motion asks the court to halt the execution and order further evaluation, according to ValleyCentral. Texas officials, per the Chronicle, are preparing to proceed with the execution regardless. Rubio's attorneys did not respond to the Chronicle's requests for comment about further appeals.
A Pattern Beyond One Case
Rubio's case follows closely on the heels of another execution raising similar questions. Texas executed Jamaal Howard in October, a man who showed evidence of serious mental illness at the time of his crime and who was treated for schizoaffective disorder after arriving on death row, the Chronicle reports. Howard's petition to the Supreme Court had argued that his mental illness and intellectual disability made him ineligible for the death penalty under Eighth Amendment protections, according to the Texas Tribune.
Research on the broader pattern suggests these cases are not outliers. A study of people executed in the United States from 2000 to 2015 found that 43% had received a mental illness diagnosis at some point in their lives — more than double the 18% rate in the general population — according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The same study found that 63% of people who volunteered for execution had a mental illness diagnosis, compared with 39% of other executed prisoners, and that nearly 40% of executed prisoners had been abused, compared with an estimated 10% of U.S. children who are abused or neglected.
With Rubio's execution date seven days away, his legal team's competing motions remain before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and it remains unresolved whether the court will intervene before November 12.
