Texas and Oklahoma executed two convicted murderers via lethal injection on Thursday, bringing the total number of capital punishment executions in the United States to 37 this year. In Huntsville, Texas, 46-year-old John Allen Rubio was put to death for the 2003 murders of his three young children, while 73-year-old James Pavatt was executed in Oklahoma for a 2001 fatal shooting.
Rubio was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. at the state prison in Huntsville, 21 minutes after the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect. As the drug was administered, Rubio took three breaths and snored before all movement ceased. His execution stemmed from the 2003 slayings of three-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio, and two-month-old Mary Jane Rubio inside a squalid, windowless apartment in Brownsville, Texas, near the U.S. border with Mexico. Rubio raised the two older children as his own, though court records show he was not their biological father. Following the killings, the apartment building was demolished and converted into a community garden and park.
Before the lethal injection, a spiritual adviser prayed briefly over Rubio. Rubio thanked his friends and family for their love and understanding, stating that he was not the same person he once was. He also thanked prison staff for teaching him how to find God and expressed love for Angela Camacho, his common-law wife who is serving a life sentence for her role in the murders. Rubio offered an apology to his wife's family, saying, "I can't change the past but I can tell you my life is going to be over. But that's not going to make you happy." He added, "I'm going to be with my kids in a little bit," and said he was ready to go to heaven to be with his lord and savior.
Rubio's legal process involved two capital murder trials. An appeals court overturned his first conviction after determining that statements made by Camacho had been improperly admitted into evidence. During his second trial, Rubio again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was convicted and sentenced to death. Rubio had claimed at various points that his children were possessed and that he was a chosen figure meant to save the world. Defense experts diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and noted that his childhood—marked by domestic violence, toxic parents, drug use, and prostitution—caused developmental damage. Prosecution experts rejected the schizophrenia diagnosis.
In Oklahoma, James Pavatt was executed on Thursday for the 2001 murder of 39-year-old advertising executive Rob Andrew. Andrew was shot to death as he arrived to pick up his two young children prior to Thanksgiving. Pavatt, who attended the same church as the Andrew family, was having an affair with Andrew's wife, Brenda Andrew. Weeks before the murder, Rob Andrew had reported to police that someone severed his car's brake lines. After the shooting, Brenda Andrew claimed to police that masked intruders had shot her in the arm and killed her husband.
Following the killing, Pavatt and Brenda Andrew fled to Mexico with her two children and were apprehended three months later while re-entering the United States. Brenda Andrew was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder in a separate trial and is currently the only female inmate on Oklahoma's death row. When asked on Thursday if he had any final words before his execution, Pavatt shook his head no, though he appeared to mouth words that could not be heard while a chaplain read from the Bible.
The two executions marked the 36th and 37th in the United States this year, keeping the nation on pace to surpass 40 executions for a second consecutive year, driven primarily by Florida. Capital punishment in the U.S. has received heightened attention following the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee in September. In addition, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on November 5 that he would commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office in January, a move legal experts call the largest mass clemency in American history.
Also on Thursday in Oklahoma, former death row inmate Richard Glossip pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of being an accessory to a 1997 murder and is awaiting sentencing in December. Glossip, who was previously brought to the brink of execution three times, was released on bond in May after nearly 30 years in prison following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn his conviction and mandate a retrial.
