Two US death row inmates were executed within hours of each other on the same day, including a man convicted of beheading three young children and another who shot his girlfriend's ex-husband.
Oklahoma execution of James Pavatt
James Pavatt, 73, was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma for the 2001 killing of Rob Andrew, 39. Pavatt was pronounced dead at 10.12am local time, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, after being convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Rob Andrew, an advertising executive, was fatally shot in the garage of the home he shared with his estranged wife Brenda Andrew while collecting their two young children before Thanksgiving. Pavatt, who attended the same church as the Andrew family, was having an affair with Brenda, and prosecutors argued the pair had plotted Rob's death.
Rob had told police weeks earlier that someone was trying to kill him after the brake lines on his car were cut. Brenda and Pavatt fled to Mexico with her two children after the shooting and were arrested as they attempted to return to the US three months later.
Pavatt claimed at a clemency hearing last month that Brenda had manipulated him into the murder, saying he was 'not guilty of shooting anyone'. Prosecutors argued both were equally guilty regardless of who fired the fatal shots. Brenda, convicted at a separate trial, was also sentenced to death and remains the only woman on death row in Oklahoma. According to NBC, Pavatt offered no last words, though he appeared to mouth something inaudible as a chaplain read from the Bible.
Texas execution of John Allen Rubio
In Huntsville, Texas, John Allen Rubio, 47, was put to death by lethal injection for the 2003 killings of three-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio, and two-month-old Mary Jane Rubio. Rubio was convicted of stabbing and beheading the children in the flat he shared in Brownsville with his common-law wife Angela Camacho, who is serving a life sentence for the murders.
Before his execution, Rubio thanked his family for their 'love and understanding' and prison staff for helping him find God on death row. He apologised to Camacho'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. I'm going to be with my kids in a little bit. I'm ready to go to heaven to be with my lord and saviour.' He was pronounced dead at 6.47pm local time, 21 minutes after the first injection.
Rubio, who was not the biological father of the children, had his original murder conviction overturned after a court ruled statements given by Camacho were wrongly used as evidence. A second trial again convicted him and sentenced him to death, despite defence experts arguing his childhood of abuse and 'toxic' parents had left him developmentally damaged and that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The trial also heard Rubio believed the children were 'possessed' and that he saw himself as 'the chosen one' who had to save the world. The apartment building where the crime occurred has since been converted into a community garden.
Executions bring US total to 37 this year
The two executions bring the number carried out in the US this year to 37, 19 of which have been in Florida as Governor DeSantis speeds up the process before he leaves office in January.
