A Texas man convicted of the brutal 2011 murder of a pastor during a church robbery is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening, marking the second execution in the nation this year.
Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, was sentenced to death for the killing of Rev. Clint Dobson, 28, at NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington. During the attack, Dobson was beaten, strangled, and suffocated with a plastic bag, while the pastor’s secretary, Judy Elliott, suffered severe injuries that nearly cost her life. Despite her ordeal, Elliott ultimately survived the violent incident.
Nelson—a high school dropout with a criminal record stretching back to childhood—has maintained that his role in the crime was limited to acting as a lookout. According to his testimony, he waited outside the church for roughly 25 minutes before entering, only to find Dobson and Elliott in the aftermath of a vicious assault. He claimed that, upon discovering Dobson still alive, he took the pastor’s laptop and that one of his alleged accomplices provided him with Elliott’s car keys and credit cards.
Investigators, however, assembled a strong case against Nelson. Surveillance footage placed him at the scene, while physical evidence—including his fingerprints, fragments of his broken belt, and blood droplets on his sneakers—linked him directly to the crime. Furthermore, phone records and a sign-in sheet discredited the alibis of two other men Nelson had blamed for the attack, positioning them away from the church at the time of the murder.
Nelson’s defense team has argued that his legal representation was grossly inadequate. They contend that his lawyers failed to challenge the alibis presented by other potential suspects and did not sufficiently highlight mitigating factors stemming from his troubled upbringing in Oklahoma and Texas. Despite these claims, state and federal appeals have been denied, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a stay of execution on January 28. Recently, his attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for intervention to allow more time to challenge his conviction.
In addition to the church murder case, Nelson was indicted for the killing of another jail inmate while awaiting trial, though he was never prosecuted on that charge after his conviction in the Dobson case. Courtroom reports also noted that Nelson had previously demonstrated erratic behavior—allegedly breaking an electronic shock cuff from his ankle, damaging a water pipe in his holding cell (which resulted in a flood of foul, black water), and reportedly unshackling his restraints using a hidden key.
Nelson is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. His execution is part of a broader series of capital punishment cases in Texas, with three additional inmates slated for execution before the end of April. The next in line is Richard Lee Tabler, who faces charges in connection with the murders of a strip club manager, the manager’s friend, and two additional victims, although he was never tried on all of the charges.
As Texas continues to execute death row inmates, questions about legal representation and the fairness of the capital punishment process remain a contentious issue in the ongoing national debate over the death penalty.