Fast Track to the Death Chamber-The Insanity of the Insanity Defense

I'm always amazed when liberals defend abortion, yet decry the death penalty. So while I was reading an article today, I realized I had stumbled upon a killer I have to assume even a liberal couldn't defend; one that even the hardest leftist couldn't possibly claim deserves to have his life spared. His fate, today, rests in the hands of a jury. This is his story.

John Allen Rubio was an admitted addict. His drug of choice was huffing paint and other inhalants to get his high. He was raised by a mother and grandmother, both drug addicts and alcoholics, practitioners of witchcraft and prostitution in Brownesville, Texas. He very obviously had a difficult upbringing, which I won't deny. In fact, he was turned out in the family business at a young age.

In 2001, Rubio met Angela Camacho, who was in the U.S. illegally, and already had one anchor baby by one man and was pregnant with another by a different man. Her lack of morals didn't seem to bother John much, who quickly claimed Camacho's children as his own, naming the boy Camacho was pregnant with after himself. Within a year, Camacho became pregnant by John Rubio, and they became a blended family. Julissa Angela Quesada, Johnny Rubio, and Mary Jane Rubio wouldn't live long to see the squalor the family lived in, nor endure abuse for long.

On March 11, 2003 7:00 p.m., a patrol officer responding to a separate domestic violence call was flagged down by a woman and a man, who were obviously frantic. The woman, Magdalena Alvarez and the man, Rubio's half brother Jose Luis Rubio were screaming in Spanish, "The babies are dead," and "They have no heads!"

Officer Cervantes secured these two people in his patrol car, and demanded they take him to the site of whatever they were talking about. They kept saying, "They have no heads, no heads."

Down the street, Jose Luis brought Officer Cervantes to the Camacho/Rubio apartment, which was a concrete block building that had once served as a corner store. Upon entering, the officer at once noticed three things, a man and woman sitting on an old futon staring at the floor, trash strewn from one end of the house to the other, and a strong odor of what he would later describe as possible bleach.

When Officer Cervantes reached the back room, he thought a headless doll was laying on the bed until he noticed the jagged wounds on the neck. Realizing it was a baby, he immediately called for backup and confronted Rubio. "What happened?" he asked. John Allen Rubio simply stood up, put his hands together and said, "Arrest me." In order to preserve the crime scene, Officer Cervantes ordered everyone out of the apartment, and Rubio was arrested outside by newly arrived policemen.

John Allen Rubio's confession is both chilling while obviously fabricated; he was already planning his insanity defense.

Rubio explained to the detectives exactly what he did to three babies, all of whom he claimed as his children.

The day before, he claimed the children's hamsters were possessed and therefore had to have their little heads smashed with a hammer. When little Julissa saw what her father had done, she started screaming and set off a chain of events that will leave people's blood chilled.

Julissa, 3, he claimed grabbed a pair of scissors and acted as if she were possessed, he claimed. She was growling at Rubio and stating that she was now his dead grandmother, who had taken over Julissa's body. Then the three babies, ages 3, 1, and 2 months, began speaking to each other like witches. Rubio said his wife told him to kill the babies, and even went to the kitchen to retrieve several knives. Like the good mother she was, Camacho helped hold the children down while Rubio killed them.

Julissa was first. Rubio and Camacho carried her into the kitchen, where he attempted to strangle her. He claimed the toddler was so strong she wouldn't die, and screamed, "Mom, please tell Dad to stop! You are killing me! You are killing me!" Rubio then stabbed her in the back and the neck while Camacho held her face down on the floor. The many stabs didn't kill the little girl though, so Rubio grabbed a machete and decapitated her. The blood was gushing out of her body and making such a mess, Angela picked up little Julissa's head and dumped it in a bucket filled with water, and washed her body off in the kitchen. At her autopsy, Julissa was found to have 12 stab wounds on the face and neck, and another 21 across her midsection, some post mortem.

Mary Jane was next. At two months old, not only could she have not spoken, she couldn't defend herself in any way. Rubio again tried to choke the baby, but she just wouldn't die. Instead, he stabbed her in the back of the head, which unbelievably didn't kill her. So John Allen Rubio used a dull kitchen knife to try to saw the baby's head off. He was only partially successful, so instead he used his bare hands to rip Mary Jane's head off her little body. Again, Angela Camacho took her daughter's head and dumped it in the bucket and washed the body.

Little Johnny, age 1, was the strongest Rubio claimed. But don't worry, other than choking him, he claimed all he did was cut off his head while both he and his wife held him down. He knew Johnny was evil because, in addition to the growling and hissing issuing forth from his obviously possessed body, Rubio tried to pour water on him and he started shaking. His head was removed with another kitchen knife while still alive, and despite the fact that known murderers are uncommonly trustworthy, little Johnny had more than 20 stab wounds. Guess you just don't know who to believe.

After the killing spree, these two parents took a shower together and washed the blood off each other, and after that, decided they had better have sex since it may be for the last time, because as John Allen Rubio stated, they were "going to jail." They then spent the night sleeping. The next day the police came calling.

It was only later when the detectives were combing the crime scene that they found the headless bodies of Mary Jane and Julissa in a plastic bag near the bed. Mary Jane's head was found in another bag in the room. The entire house was covered in blood. The walls, floors, carpet, clothing, and trash were liberally splattered. None of the bodies had so much as an ounce of blood left in them.

At first, Camacho corroborated Rubio's story. But it didn't take long to admit they killed the children because their welfare and food stamps were about to be revoked because they used a false social security number and were caught. They were about to be thrown out of the trash infested hole they were living in, and none of Rubio's family would take them in.

They had planned to bury the bodies in a city cemetery, and escape to Mexico to be together. Asked why Camacho, their mother, would agree to such a heinous crime on her own children, she replied, "Because we were afraid. I didn't want to lose my husband again, since he had gone to jail before. I was afraid because I had never been in jail before."

Because of the gravity of the crime, both Camacho and Rubio were eligible for the death penalty, certainly a fitting end for these two. But then Mexico intervened and demanded that one of their great citizens in this country illegally not be put to death. Camacho promptly pled guilty and received three life sentences with the possibility of parole after forty years. If she makes it that long, she will be immediately deported. She has, of course, refused to testify against Rubio.

John Rubio's attorneys, naturally, claimed he was innocent by reason of insanity. The defense brought expert after expert to claim Rubio didn't know right from wrong, and suffered from a learning disability, ADHD, and very low intelligence. Amazingly, this almost retarded person is the guy other inmates go to to have help filing their appeals. But one expert claims, "...he [Rubio] still cannot comprehend legal documents you claimed he is reading."

Since Angela Camacho refused to testify, prosecutors admitted into evidence her taped confessions, which the Supreme Court shot down. It was a mistrial.

John Allen Rubio went back on trial this month, and today the case went to the jury. I don't believe he will be given a reprieve. I suspect the Texans who hold his life in their hands will send him on the fast track to the death chamber.

Will update when the verdict comes back.

UPDATE: John Allen Rubio was just found guilty after only three hours in the jury's hands. Penalty phase to follow.