© 2024 Texas Public Radio
Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Texas Matters: Murder And Madness In Brownsville

John Allen Rubio sits on Death Row in Texas. He was convicted of the 2003 murder of three children that were in his care. Rubio with his common law wife Angela Camacho say they believed the children were possessed by the devil. Prosecutors say Rubio committed the murders because they were homeless and so poor he didn’t want to take care of them any longer. The murder shocked the border community of Brownsville at the time and it’s a news story that’s still remembered. But former Brownsville Herald reporter Laura Tillman wanted to go deeper in the telling of this crime. She wrote the book “The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City.”

David Martin Davies can be reached at dmdavies@tpr.org and on Twitter at @DavidMartinDavi