A Texas man is executed for the killing of a pastor during a robbery at a church

[February 06, 2025]  By JIM VERTUNO and MICHAEL GRACZYK

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man convicted of beating and suffocating a Dallas area pastor in his church during a robbery was put to death Wednesday evening, the second execution in the U.S. this year and the first of four scheduled in Texas over the next three months.

Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was convicted of the 2011 killing of the Rev. Clint Dobson, a 28-year-old pastor who was beaten, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag inside NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington. The church’s secretary, Judy Elliott, 67, was severely beaten but survived.

Shortly before the injection began, the inmate repeatedly told his wife, who watched through a window a short distance from him, that he loved her and that he was thankful and grateful.

“It is what it is,” Nelson said. When he added that she should “enjoy life,” the woman, Helene Noa Dubois, held up to the window a white service dog that she was allowed to bring into the witness area.

“I’m not scared. I’m at peace,” Nelson added. “Let’s ride, Warden.”

As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began to be administered, he told Dubois, who married him recently while he was in prison, “Let me go to sleep.” The drug appeared to take effect as he said the word, “Love,” the he gasped twice and appeared to try to hold his breath. His head, shoulders and arms trembled for a few seconds before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later.

Nelson was the first Texas death row inmate executed since Robert Roberson’s Oct. 17, 2024, execution date was delayed in what would have been the first in the U.S. tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

South Carolina carried out the nation’s first execution of 2025 on Friday. Marion Bowman Jr. received a lethal injection for his murder conviction in the shooting death of a friend whose burned body was found in a car in 2001.

Relatives of the victims declined to speak with reporters and released statements earlier Wednesday.

“As a family, we have chosen to take this day to focus on the great memories we have of Clint rather than giving time to his killer,” Dobson’s family said in its statement. “Steven Nelson forever changed our lives, but he has never occupied our minds. ... We miss Clint every day. We miss his laughter and his wit, his advice and his love for us.”

Bradley Elliott, whose mother Judy survived the attack, said: “I hope that today as Mr. Nelson took his last breath that he was greeted by the same loving and gracious Savior that has stood by us through all we have been a part of.” The statement added: “Mr. Nelson, we forgive you and hope to see you when we are called home from here.”

Texas death row inmate Steven Lawayne Nelson poses for a photo in a visiting cage at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit outside Livingston, Texas, on Dec. 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Graczyk, File)

Nelson was a laborer and high school dropout with a long history of legal trouble and arrests that started as early as age 6. Nelson had pleaded for mercy, claiming that he had only served as a robbery lookout and blamed two other men for killing Dobson.

Nelson testified at trial and has maintained that he waited outside the church for about 25 minutes before going in and seeing that Dobson and the secretary had been beaten, and he insisted Dobson was still alive. Nelson said he took Dobson’s laptop and that one of the other men gave him Elliott’s car keys and credit cards.

The victims were later found by Elliott’s husband, the church’s part-time music minister, who didn’t immediately recognize her because she had been so severely beaten.

Trial evidence showed Nelson’s fingerprints and pieces of his broken belt at the crime scene, drops of the victims’ blood on his sneakers, and surveillance video showing him driving Elliott’s car and using her credit cards. Investigators also said the two men Nelson blamed for the attack had detailed alibis.

Nelson’s attorneys appealed on claims of bad legal representation at his trial and sentencing, saying this lawyers did little to challenge the alibis of the other men, or present mitigating evidence of a troubled childhood in Oklahoma and Texas.

While awaiting trial, Nelson was indicted in the killing of another jail inmate. He was never tried on that charge after his guilty verdict and death sentence.

Nelson’s appeals had been denied by state and federal courts. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay of execution on Jan. 28, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay hours before the execution.

Three more executions are scheduled in Texas before the end of April. The first is scheduled for Feb. 13. Richard Lee Tabler was condemned for gunning down a strip club manager and the manager’s friend in 2004.

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