Man sentenced to death for murdering three children

A US man who confessed to beheading his common-law wife's three young children has been sentenced to death after telling a judge he wanted to be executed.

Jurors sentenced John Allen Rubio to death by injection after convicting him of three counts of murder, one for each of the children he admitted killing on March 11.

Rubio, 23, and his common-law wife, Angela Camacho, told police they killed three-year-old Julissa Quezada, one-year-old John Esthefan Rubio and two-month-old Mary Jane Rubio because they thought the children were possessed and they did not want them to grow up evil.

Camacho, 23, is awaiting a hearing on whether she is mentally competent to stand trial.

Rubio and his lawyer requested the death penalty moments after prosecutors began their opening statements in the penalty phase of the trial on Friday.

Although prosecutors also sought the death penalty, they said Rubio was just trying to play on jurors' emotions. He could have received life in prison.

During the trial, Rubio's lawyers said he came from a background of poverty, substance abuse and witchcraft, and argued that he was legally insane at the time the children were killed.

While Rubio was diagnosed as a child with emotional problems, prosecutor Karen Betancourt said he had no history of mental illness, and that there was abundant evidence that Rubio knew what he had done was wrong.

Prosecutors suggested it was an overall life of depravity, including prostitution, drugs and a filthy apartment, that led to a decision to kill the children.

Mary Anderson, a psychiatrist who was a witness for the prosecution, said Rubio's inhalation of spray paint over time may have created a psychotic state, but she added that he knew his actions were wrong.