A Death Row killer who brutally murdered a pastor with a plastic bag in his church uttered three chilling last words as he was executed. Steven Lawayne Nelson, a Texas death row inmate, killed Dallas area pastor Reverend Clint Dobson in cold blood during a church robbery, was executed on February 5.
The lethal injection at Huntsville’s state penitentiary marked the end of Nelson’s life for the 2011 crime where he beat, strangled, and suffocated the 28-year-old pastor with a plastic bag inside the NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington.
Before surrendering to death, Nelson uttered his last words: “It is what it is.” He then confidently stated to the chamber officers: “I’m not scared. I’m at peace. Let’s ride, Warden.” He also advised his wife to “enjoy life.”
At 37-years-old, Nelson received his fatal injection and was declared dead at 6.50pm CST, according to the Mirror. As the sedative pentobarbital flowed into his veins, he spoke to his spouse Dubois, who had married him while incarcerated, saying: “Let me go to sleep.”
As he mentioned the word “Love,” his final gasps were taken, and after briefly attempting to hold his breath, his body experienced a short tremor before falling still. Just 24 minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
Nelson continued to insist he was innocent – and proclaimed that he is “not the monster they say I am.” He said he wanted a lie detector to prove he was innocent.
His execution marks the first since the postponement of Robert Roberson’s scheduled execution on October 17, 2024, which would have been a landmark case connected to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.
South Carolina has gone through with the first execution of the year 2025 as Marion Bowman Jr faced a lethal injection for the murder of a friend, whose charred remains were discovered in a car back in 2001.
Opting for privacy, the victim’s relatives turned away from press discussions and issued a statement on Wednesday saying: “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.”
The Dobson family expressed: “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 Nelson’s assault, commented : “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.
“Mr. Nelson, we forgive you and hope to see you when we are called home from here.”
Convicted felon Nelson, with a troubled history of legal disputes and arrests beginning at the tender age of six, had pleaded for leniency, insisting his role was merely as a robbery lookout and pointing the finger at two others for Dobson’s murder.