Texas and Oklahoma carried out two executions within hours of each other on Thursday, closing two unrelated murder cases that stretch back more than two decades. Oklahoma put James Pavatt to death first. Later that evening, Texas executed John Allen Rubio at its prison in Huntsville. The timing placed both states in the national spotlight on the same night.
Pavatt, 73, died at the state penitentiary in McAlester. He was convicted in the 2001 murder-for-hire killing of his lover’s estranged husband. According to Fox News, he offered no last words. Consequently, attention shifted quickly to Texas, where officials had scheduled a second execution for that evening.
Rubio, 46, faced a far different case, one that rattled a community along the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas courts convicted him of stabbing and beheading three young children he helped raise. The killings took place in Brownsville on March 11, 2003, inside what The Associated Press described as a “squalid, windowless apartment.” Residents of the border city have lived with the memory of that crime for nearly 23 years.
Before the lethal injection began, Rubio spoke to those gathered in Huntsville. He thanked his loved ones, then said he was “going to be with my kids,” according to Fox News. Texas then carried out the sentence that evening, ending a case that had lingered over South Texas for almost a quarter century.
Appeals did not stop the execution. Newsweek reported that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest court for criminal cases, recently rejected a motion from Rubio’s defense attorneys requesting a stay. As a result, the state moved ahead on schedule. Likewise, Pavatt’s execution went forward as planned earlier in the day.
The two cases differ sharply in their details. Pavatt’s involved a planned killing for hire, tied to a romantic relationship. Rubio’s involved children who lived in his own home. Nevertheless, both men’s cases reached the same end on the same night, in neighboring states.
News outlets covered the two executions together throughout the day. The Associated Press reported that Oklahoma put Pavatt to death hours before Texas executed Rubio, and many headlines linked the two events. Because both men died within hours, many readers encountered the stories as one.
For the people closest to these cases, the executions mark the end of long legal journeys. In Brownsville, the Rubio execution brought a decades-old case to its conclusion. In Oklahoma, Pavatt’s death ended a case that began with a fatal shooting in 2001.
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