Judge orders Rubio capital murder trial out of Cameron County
The capital murder trial of accused child killer John Allen Rubio has been moved to Hidalgo County.
Visiting State District Judge Noe Gonzalez of Hidalgo Couty ruled on a change of venue motion earlier today ordering the trial be moved out of Cameron County.
Gonzalez made the ruling four days after testimony in which Rubio’s defense attorneys claimed that extensive media publicity of the Rubio case would prevent him from receiving a fair trial in Cameron County.
Rubio is accused of murdering the three children of his common-law wife in Brownsville on March 11, 2003. The children were smothered, stabbed and mutilated, according to Brownsville police investigators. Their decapitated bodies were stuffed inside trash bags.
Rubio was convicted in November 2003 on three counts of capital murder in the deaths of the children, Julissa Quesada, 3, John E. Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months.
He is the biological father of one of the children, Mary Jane.
Rubio pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity during the trial and was sentenced to death.
However, Rubio’s conviction was reversed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in September 2007, thus granting him a new trial.
Rubio remains incarcerated at the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito.
For more on this story, read Tuesday’s Brownsville Herald.
