06 February 2025 :
Feb. 5, 2025 - Texas. Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, Black, was executed. Nelson was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital and pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST on February 5 at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The execution is Texas’ first in 2025
He was convicted of the 2011 killing of the Rev. Clint Dobson, 28, White, a pastor who was beaten, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag inside North Pointe Baptist Church in Arlington. The church’s secretary, Judy Elliott, 67, was severely beaten but survived.
Nelson maintained he did not commit the crime, though he admitted he was there for a robbery while the murder occurred.
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 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.
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.
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 becomes the 1st executed this year in Texas, the 592nd since Texas resumed executions in 1982, the 2nd of the year in the US, and No. 1609 since executions resumed in the US in 1977.
