Wednesday, March 12, 2003 Posted: 12:05 PM EST (1705 GMT)

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (CNN) -- The bodies of three young children were found inside a one-bedroom apartment near downtown Tuesday night, and police have detained the parents, said Brownsville Police Homicide Detective Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique.
Two of the bodies were found inside trash bags, the third was on the bed, police said. The children --ages 3, 1 and two months -- were two sisters and a brother.
At least two of them had been decapitated, said Manrrique.
"It was horrible -- shocking," said Manrrique, a 16-year police veteran. "Seeing a child that's been decapitated -- an infant."
Detectives and police crime units were still at the scene late Tuesday night, waiting on search warrants to go back inside the home.
Brownsville is about 277 miles south-southeast of San Antonio on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Couple charged with capital murder in children?s slayings

By BRITTNEY BOOTH
The Brownsville Herald
The Brownsville couple accused of killing their three young children ? reportedly decapitating all three ? were each charged with three counts of capital murder and denied bond at their arraignment Wednesday morning.
John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho were dressed in orange jail jumpsuits as they stood in front of Brownsville Municipal Court Judge Reynaldo Garza III at 8:15 a.m. at the Brownsville Police Station.
Garza spoke to each separately, Rubio first in English then Camacho in Spanish. He asked if they understood that they were being charged with three counts of capital murder and then read them their rights. Both answered yes and said they had no questions.
Cameron County Assistant District Attorney Karen Betancourt said the couple were being charged with capital felony counts for "causing the death of three children under the age of 6," "all three children decapitated."
Betancourt asked that they be denied bond as they had admitted to the crime and there was evidence "to hold them on no-bond status," she said.
Garza explained to both Rubio and Camacho that they would be held without bond and said the possible punishment for the two ranged from life in prison to the death sentence.

Police said the couple decapitated a baby boy, around 1 year old, and two other children under age 6. The 1-year-old?s body was found on a bed; the other two were in black plastic bags inside the apartment complex at Eighth and Tyler streets.
A couple visiting the family discovered the gruesome scene Tuesday night and waved down a patrolling police officer.
The couple are in their early 20s, police said.
After the police conclude their investigation, the case will be presented to the district attorney?s office for grand jury review. The last death penalty case tried in Cameron County was in 1999, when Ruben Gutierrez was found guilty of stabbing an 85-year-old woman with a screwdriver, Betancourt said.
About 20 people attended the arraignment, including Rube?s aunt Ana Garcia whom police questioned for about a half-hour after the hearing.
"I really can?t believe he did it," she told The Brownsville Herald outside the police station. Garcia?s sister is Rubio?s mother. "If he says he did it, he probably did. He?s a very happy person, a sweet person. I?m shocked."
Garcia said she had little contact with her nephew since she moved back to Brownsville three years ago, and only knew the two older children.
She said the couple was common law husband and wife, and Camacho is the mother of all three children. Rubio, a Porter High School graduate, is the father of two, she said.
"He was a good father," Garcia said.
When she saw her nephew in the courtroom, she said," it was like a different person."

The baby killers: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/sections/archive/topstoryjmp/3-13-03/EARLY_JonAllenRubio.jpg http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/sections/archive/topstoryjmp/3-13-03/EARLY_AngeliaCamacho.jpg

Only God knows what type of childhood trauma these child killers might have gone through, but nothing justifies what they did. The death penalty is not enough for these two abominations. They should do to them what they did to their own children. They should do it to them slowly, blow by blow.:mad: :mad:

That is absolutely disgusting and sad. Those guys deserve everything that comes to them

Texas Woman Charged in Killings of 3 Kids
By LYNN BREZOSKY

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) - A woman and her
common-law husband were charged with murder Wednesday after police found the bodies of a decapitated 1-year-old boy and two young siblings in the family's small, run-down apartment.

The children's 23-year-old mother, Angela Camacho, and John Allen Rubio, the 22-year-old father of the youngest child, were being held without bond, according to police Lt. Henry Etheridge.

The 1-year-old's body was found Tuesday night on a bed, and the others were in garbage bags beside it, police in this border town said.

Chief Carlos Garcia said he didn't know the conditions of the two bagged bodies because police were waiting for a search warrant to proceed.

The children had apparently been dead since Monday night, Garcia said. None was older than 5, he said.

Garcia described the one-bedroom apartment as bloody and messy. ``There's clothes, trash, all sorts of things thrown all over,'' he said. ``Very poor, very trashy ... in the worst conditions that anyone could live in in the United States.''

The bodies were found after a couple walked into
the apartment, discovered the bloody scene and flagged down passing police officers, the chief said. They were being interviewed by police.

``It tears my heart. I want to cry. How can people do this?'' said Nancy Garcia, 46, who lives nearby and said she grew up in the
neighborhood. ``There's help out there.''

Brownsville is on the US-Mexican border, about 230 miles south of San Antonio.

03/12/03 14:25

That is just horrible! It's monsters like these that make me glad this country has the death penalty. I just wish it would be used much more often. These sick creeps definitely deserve it.

That's awful. Those poor kids...and those horrible people. They deserve everything that anyone wants to inflict on them.

Aww :(

What kind of sick mind would do something like that. Its horrible, and OH MY GOSH ! I am speechless, who in their right mind would kill 3 people, especially 3 infants. Oh my gosh. This is the first that I have heard of this:(

This is a sick sick work...

"Life can be unbearable when u realize all the evil and can't stop it from happening, I have felt so helpless when i see the pain in their eyes it brings me to tears..."-Ardis

people are sick...

how could anyone do that to a poor defenceless child, especially if it's their own? That's just sad...

that's so sad...:(

It's so shocking how some people have become so de-humanized. Only a person with a defective mind mixed with drugs would do something as horrendous as that, is my best guess.

There's a big probability that tonight, many parents are hugging and telling their children they love them.

Originally posted by Charlie Max
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 Posted: 12:05 PM EST (1705 GMT)
At least two of them had been decapitated, said Manrrique.
"It was horrible -- shocking," said Manrrique, a 16-year police veteran. "Seeing a child that's been decapitated -- an infant."


That is sick! I think after reading this, I've heard of almost all the sick people in the world. Decapitating an infant is absolutely disgusting. :eek: :mad:

What the hell has happened to people????There are just too many awful,sick people in the world.I hope those responsible will be put to death:mad: :mad:

There are no words to describe that story. This world's going down the toilet.

I live in Texas and i heard about it on the news...

I hope this world ends soon because would rather live in Heaven then in this God-Forsaken world!!!!

That is so sad but here is some happy news:


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nine months ago, was found Wednesday walking down a suburban street with a drifter who had briefly worked at the family's home. The man was taken into custody, and the teenager was whisked away for a reunion with her jubilant family.

"Miracles do exist," said Tom Smart, the girl's uncle.

Elizabeth was returned home about 10:20 p.m. EST in an unmarked police van. She did not speak to reporters as she rushed inside the house. Relatives said Elizabeth was in good condition and had talked with police about her ordeal.

"All of the children out there deserve to come back to their parents the way Elizabeth has come back to us," father Ed Smart said as he burst into sobs during a celebration at his home.

Originally posted by vintagetvgirl
I hope those responsible will be put to death:mad: :mad:

agreed.

That is so wrong... what's this world coming to? Murdering your own children, my God... My condolences go out to the extended family, aunts, uncles, etc. :(

Neighbors report ‘mysterious’ family
Quiet public behavior contrasts with children’s violent end



By JENNIFER MUIR
The Brownsville Herald
March 13, 2003

Outside his creaky downtown apartment, neighbors often saw John Allen Rubio proudly cradling his 1-year-old son in his arms. He rarely left the house with his common-law wife Angela Camacho. When they did both go out, she would push their two daughters in a grocery cart far behind the father and son during trips to the store.

Neighbors said the only other glimpses into the guarded family’s lives came in the form of screaming matches, mysterious cars stopping by in the middle of the night, or the waft or marijuana permeating the building.

But nothing they heard or saw from their Tyler Street vantage points prepared them for the shocking news that the seemingly quiet, eccentric couple’s children were found decapitated and their little bodies stuffed into black trash bags in their small apartment. Rubio and Camacho have been charged with capital murder in connection with the deaths.

"I would always hear them fighting," said Nidia Hernandez, whose bed rests against a window above the family’s home. "She was very quiet and wouldn’t talk to anyone outside — the only time I ever heard her was when she was screaming. He was always calm with her, and I never saw him get violent at all. They never talked to me. But you can never imagine anything like this."

When police finally opened up apartment 11, the smell of urine, trash and dirty clothes filled the neighborhood air. And although its contents were strewn in the open, the clues revealed little about who the family was, nor could it explain how a doting father could murder his favorite son.

"He seemed so proud of his son and he would hold him so gently and raise him in the air," she said. "And I just held him in my arms a week ago, he was so gorgeous. He just always seemed so proud."

Neither Rubio nor Camacho worked, police said. And according to Good Neighbor Settlement House director Carlos Gomez, the couple frequently carried their children down six blocks for a free meal. A worn-down Gomez sadly said he knew the family well and when he found out about the children’s’ deaths, he couldn’t believe it.

"They came in here often, and we became friends. We are all just shocked," said Gomez, who wouldn’t give details about the family except to say that Rubio’s mother also visited the home but he hadn’t seen her in weeks.

Several neighbors also reported suspicions that Rubio might have been involved with drugs.

Rubio pleaded guilty in July 2001 for possession of less than 2 grams of marijuana, and Cameron County Judge Daniel Robles sentenced him to six months probation, fines and random urine sampling for the offense. But when his tests came back positive for cocaine and marijuana in January and February of this year, Robles revoked his probation and issued a warrant for his arrest.

His wife Camacho, a 23-year-old Mexican national who rarely left the house and had virtually no acquaintances, was the mother of the 3-year-old and 2-month-old girls, and the 1-year-old boy. Rubio fathered the two youngest children, according to police, and had attended counseling with his wife through Child Protective Services until December 2002.

The 1999 Porter High School graduate’s classmates described him as a shy, slow learner in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Lorena Mendoza, who was in the ROTC with Rubio, said he had several girlfriends during high school.

Another classmate, Lisbeth Lopez, described Rubio as a respectful guy from a low-income family.

"He seemed very passive. He would answer the teacher and not ever be mean," Lopez said. "I can’t believe it’s that guy. I mean, you have a lot of contact with your classmates — I’m just shocked."

But Joyce Longoria, Rubio’s family friend who remembers the days when he was in a group that performed at quinceañeras and pachangas, is outraged that no one intervened before it was too late.

"Can’t you tell when a child is mistreated and malnourished?" she asked. "Doesn’t the grandmother visit these kids? I guess she has a life of her own, but does she not care?"

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/sections/archive/topstoryjmp/3-14-03/Deaths1.jpg
A father holds his daughter close to him as they attend the memorial service Thursday morning at the Boys and Girls Club for the three small children who were murdered this week.
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/sections/archive/topstoryjmp/3-14-03/Deaths4.jpg

City gathers to mourn slain children

BY JENNIFER MUIR
The Brownsville Herald


BROWNSVILLE, March 14 — Resonating over a steady murmur of children’s laughter and tears, father Pasquale Julio Lanese led more than 300 Brownsville neighbors in a prayer for the three babies who couldn’t be there.

Crowded on the Boys & Girls Club basketball court Thursday that faces the one-bedroom apartment where 3-year-old Julisa Angela Quezada, 1-year-old John Esthefan Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio were horrifically murdered, the community joined the prayer — trying to find solace in the knowledge that the three children were beheaded across the street.

The children’s parents, John Allen Rubio, 22, and Angela Camacho, 23, confessed Tuesday to the slayings and await trial on capital murder charges behind bars.

"Don't be discouraged for what happened because Jesus loves you," Lanese told a crowd painted with sadness and disbelief. "Continue loving your children more than ever, respecting your children more than ever."

But for some neighbors, his encouraging words weren't enough to numb their shock.

Nancy Garcia blurted between wracking sobs that she lived just houses down from the family, but she never spoke to them or knew who they were.

"I feel so sad because I couldn't do anything," Garcia said. "I wish I would have known."

Rubio's uncle Manuel Tijerina, who said he met his nephew only a few times despite living their whole lives in the same city, stood solemnly and watched as a procession of neighbors dropped white carnations on the doorstep of Apartment 11, amid teddy bears, candles and notes of encouragement. All 10 of his children had attended the Boys & Girls Club, he said.

"I didn’t get to know him real well, but I should have," said Tijerina, who was unsure if Rubio’s father Rolando Rubio had heard about the killing. "His father lives in California, and most of the family on my side has passed away years ago."

Sitting behind the podium where a little girl read the Lord’s Prayer, a choir sang "Jesus Loves Me," and area officials expressed the city’s grief, a throng of politicians faced the grief-stricken crowd. Some also offered their perspectives.

"I think God does everything for a purpose," Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa said. "Maybe God said, ‘Julisa, John and Mary, I need you to let the leaders in America and Texas know that there are children whose lives are affected and that when they suffer, God suffers.’ Let’s pray they did their job and did it well."



As the grandparents, parents, children and neighbors of Brownsville scattered afterward, some knew they’d return to listen to the 7 p.m. rosary ceremony that night. And all of them knew that what happened in that apartment would be etched in their collective memory.

"We’ll never forget them," Sheriff Conrado Cantu said.

Lilian Guerra, who owns Guerra Funeral Home at 3955 Coffee Port Road, met with Rubio and Camacho’s family to arrange a Saturday funeral. The state-funded Crime Victim’s Compensation Fund is covering service costs, and the funeral home is donating whatever costs the fund won’t cover, Guerra said.

"There are some people who want to donate, and have been donating it in memory of the children," said Guerra, who noted she has set up a public memorial in front of the home, and that the 24-hour services would be private.

Guerra also said any donations would help fund the funeral of 18-year-old Stacey Corona, who died in a car accident Tuesday night. Corona was Rubio’s cousin, a family member said Thursday.

Meanwhile, Guerra said her employees were working to make the three bodies presentable for viewing, although she couldn’t say whether that would be possible

They don't deserve the death penalty. They deserve WORSE:mad: .
who would do such a thing?!!

That is so sad :(