Steven Nelson executed in Texas for murder of young pastor

Texas executed Steven Nelson by lethal injection on Wednesday for the 2011 murder of a beloved young pastor.

Nelson, who was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CT, was convicted of killing the Rev. Clint Dobson at NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington, just west of Dallas.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, who was Nelson’s spiritual adviser and was in the death chamber, said that it “took forever” for Nelson to be declared dead, adding at a news conference that “he fought to the very end.”

Hood said that Nelson protested his execution by refusing to walk to the van that transferred him to the Huntsville Unit, where the state’s execution chamber is located. Hood said that there were bandages on Nelson’s arms that were not there when he visited Nelson earlier in the day.

Amanda Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice − the agency that carries out executions − said she did not have any information about Nelson’s resistance, though she said he walked into the chamber. She did not immediately respond to a question about the bandages.

Nelson has acknowledged robbing NorthPointe Baptist Church but has always said he didn’t kill Dobson, instead pointing the finger at two accomplices.

“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,” members of the Dobson family said in a statement to USA TODAY. “Steven Nelson forever changed our lives, but he has never occupied our minds.”

Nelson’s execution is the second in the U.S. this year and the first in Texas in 2025. The state is set to execute another man next week on Feb. 13, the same day as another execution in Florida.

What were Steven Nelson’s last words?

Hood said that one of Nelson’s final acts was, “adamantly professing how much he loves” his wife, who was among the witnesses to the execution.

“I will always love you no matter … our love is uncontrollable,” Nelson told her, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “I’m at peace, I’m ready to be at home. Let’s ride, Warden.”

Clemency activists make last stand

Hood and Nelson’s wife, Noa Dubois, held a vigil for Nelson on Tuesday night and hours before the execution made a final plea for mercy. Dubois and Nelson married last year after meeting through an inmate letter-writing program in 2020.

In its statement the family rebuffed the clemency push.

“We are aware of his new wife and how some of her recent activities have compounded the anguish caused by her husband’s crimes,” the family said in the statement.

When asked by the Austin American-Statesman − a part of the USA TODAY Network − what her life will be like after her husband is gone, Dubois said, “It’s going to be very hard.”

Hood said at the press conference that Nelson told him in the chamber that his efforts to save his life were not in vain.

“Jeff you didn’t fail because I had the will to fight,” Nelson said, according to Hood.

What is Steven Nelson convicted of?

Dobson, who was just 28 years old, was beaten and suffocated while church secretary Judy Elliot was severely beaten but survived, according to court records.

Nelson admitted to stealing Elliot’s car, laptop, and credit cards, which he used to buy gas, clothes and jewelry. Nelson maintains that two accomplices committed the murder, testifying that he went into the church five minutes after they did to find the victims on the floor.

Prosecutors argued that Nelson acted alone, and investigators found DNA from both Dobson and Elliot on Nelson’s shoe. Nelson’s attorneys argued that one of his accomplices had injuries that were consistent with the assault and later, his clemency lawyers questioned the validity of the alibis given by the alleged accomplices.

A jury convicted Nelson of murder.

The pastor’s young widow, Laura Dobson, sobbed on the stand during Nelson’s trial, saying that she and her husband were looking forward to the life they wanted to build, according to the Forth Worth Star Telegram.

“We always tried to see the good in people,” she said. “I didn’t know this much evil existed in the world.”

She told Dobson: “After this trial is over, no one will want to remember you, but people will most definitely remember Clint.”

Who was Clint Dobson?

Dobson had a dream for his Texas church: to fill it with young families and children and spread the gospel that had changed the course of his own life at the age of 8.

“I hope that my ministry reaches people of all backgrounds and statuses,” Dobson wrote while he was a student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, according to his family. “I desire to offer hope, and I pray to be part of peace in the lives of those in the community around me.”

Robert Creech, a professor of Christian ministries at Baylor, met Dobson when the future pastor was just 4 years old. At the time, Creech was the pastor at Dobson’s family church, University Baptist in Houston, and remembers Dobson well, according to a tribute Creech wrote about the young man.

“He invested himself in his church as a child and as a teenager, engaging in ministry and growing as a disciple,” Creech recalled.

In their statement to USA TODAY, Dobson’s family said that “Clint loved people, and he loved God.”

“He was always excited by the opportunity to unite the two,” they said. “A believer in social justice, he led a diverse congregation and worked to make sure that everyone felt comfortable and welcome at NorthPointe.”

Wiles said that the church that Dobson left behind now has a school and has grown to fulfill Dobson’s dream.

“This school is filled with children every single day,” Wiles said. “That means this place is filled with life. Well, that’s what the gospel brings and Clint’s legacy lives.”

One more execution this week, two on same day next

On Thursday Demetrius Frazier is scheduled to become the fourth inmate executed by nitrogen gas in the U.S. since Alabama began using the controversial method last year. Hood was a spiritual advisor to Kenneth Eugene Smith and witnessed the state’s first nitrogen gas execution in January 2024. “I had never seen something so violent,” Hood wrote in an opinion column for USA TODAY after the execution.

Texas is scheduled to execute Richard Tabler on Feb. 13. for a spree killing in 2004 that included two back-to-back double murders. Also on Feb. 13, Florida is set to execute James Ford in the brutal killings of a husband and wife in front of their 22-month-old daughter.

There are currently 177 people on death row in Texas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The state has executed 582 people since 1976.

This story has been updated with new information

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Steven Nelson executed in Texas for 2011 murder of young pastor