Texas puts to death man who beheaded three children, hours after Oklahoma execution

Rubio was pronounced dead at 6:47 pm Thursday after receiving a lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas. His killings of his baby girl and two toddlers in a squalid, windowless apartment in Brownsville were so shocking that the apartment building was later demolished and turned into a park and community garden.

Last words and execution

After a spiritual adviser prayed over him, Rubio thanked friends and family for their 'love and understanding,' saying he was 'not the same person I once was.' He expressed gratitude to prison staff for helping him find God and apologized to his wife's family.

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital took effect, Rubio took three breaths and began snoring-like sounds before ceasing all movement. A physician pronounced him dead 21 minutes after the injection began.

Double execution day

Hours earlier, Oklahoma executed 73-year-old James Pavatt for the 2001 fatal shooting of his girlfriend's estranged husband, who was killed while arriving to pick up his two young children before Thanksgiving. Pavatt shook his head when asked if he had last words.

Thursday's executions marked the 36th and 37th in the US this year, with the country on track to surpass 40 executions for a second consecutive year, a pace driven primarily by Florida.

Legal history

Rubio and his common-law wife Angela Camacho were accused of killing three-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E Rubio, and two-month-old Mary Jane Rubio. Camacho received a life sentence after pleading guilty. An appeals court overturned Rubio's first conviction before he was retried and sentenced to death again.

Defense experts diagnosed Rubio with paranoid schizophrenia, a finding prosecution experts rejected. Rubio claimed the children were possessed and that he was the 'chosen one' meant to save the world. In Oklahoma, Pavatt had attended the same church as the victim's family and had been having an affair with the victim's wife, Brenda Andrew, who is the only woman on Oklahoma's death row.

National context

The death penalty has drawn renewed attention since the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee in September. On November 5, California's governor Gavin Newsom announced he would commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office in January, what experts say would be the largest mass clemency in American history.

Also on Thursday, former Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in a 1997 murder case. Glossip, who had been on the brink of execution three times, was released on bond in May after nearly 30 years in prison.