McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma man has been put to death for fatal shot from his girlfriend’s ex-husband as he arrived to pick up his two young children before Thanksgiving. This is the first in a series of executions planned for Thursday in the United States.
James Pavatt, 73, received a lethal injection at the McAlester State Penitentiary. His breathing did not appear labored during the execution and he was pronounced unconscious approximately six minutes before being pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. CST.
In Texas, John Allen Rubio was scheduled to be executed later Thursday. The 46-year-old was found guilty of beheading three young children it was raised during a 2003 murder that shook a community along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Even if the death penalty arouses renewed interest after the failure of the execution of Christine Pike in Tennessee, the United States is on track to exceed 40 executions for the second year in a row — a rhythm carried by Florida.
Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office, which experts say would constitute the largest mass clemency in American history.
Oklahoma advertising man killed in garage
When Pavatt was asked if he had any final words, he shook his head no. As a chaplain read him from a Bible, he appeared to speak a few words, but they could not be heard.
Pavatt was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the 2001 death of Rob Andrew, a 39-year-old advertising executive. Pavatt attended the same church as the Andrew family and had an affair with Rob Andrew’s wife, Brenda Andrew. She was convicted in a separate trial and is currently the only woman on death row in Oklahoma.
Weeks before the shooting, Rob Andrew told police that someone was trying to kill him after his car’s brake lines were cut. Brenda Andrew told police after her husband’s death that masked intruders shot him in the arm and shot him.
Pavatt and Brenda Andrew traveled to Mexico with her two children after the shooting and were arrested three months later while returning to the United States.
At a clemency hearing last month, Pavatt said he was “not guilty of shooting anyone,” that he had fallen in love with Brenda Andrew and believed “everything she told me.”
“It wasn’t until my trial that I began to understand the extent to which I had been manipulated by Brenda,” Pavatt told the court. “I understand why the jury believed we were both involved in Rob’s murder.”
Prosecutors said Pavatt and Brenda Andrew conspired to kill her husband and that no matter who fired the shots, both were equally guilty.
No family members of Rob Andrew or Pavatt witnessed the execution, although his daughter and her husband had visited him the night before, a prison spokesman said.
3 young children beheaded in Texas
Rubio and his girlfriend, Angela Camacho, were charged with the murders of Julissa Quesada, 3, John E. Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months, in the sordid, windowless apartment they shared Brownsville, located on the Texas border with Mexico.
Camacho pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.
Rubio’s first capital murder conviction was overturned by an appeals court, which ruled that Camacho’s statements were improperly admitted as evidence in his trial. Rubio again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity during his second trial, but he was again found guilty and sentenced to death.
Rubio, according to court records, was not the biological father of the two older children, but he treated them as if they were his own.
On several occasions, Rubio claimed that the children were possessed and that he was the “chosen one” destined to save the world. Defense experts diagnosed Rubio as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a determination rejected by prosecution experts.
Defense experts testified that his childhood — filled with violence at home, “toxic” parents, drug use and prostitution — harmed his development.
The building where the children were killed was later demolished and the land transformed into a park and community garden.
Rubio is expected to be executed at Huntsville State Prison.
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