A man who cheated on a pastor in his own church made a challenging remark before he was executed by fatal injection while his wife held up their white service dog to witness the event.
Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, was declared dead at 6.50 pm on Wednesday evening at 6.50 pm in Huntsville, Texas – after he refused to walk into the room in what was described as a 'non -violent protest'.
His death marked the second performance in the United States before 2025.
Nelson defeated, strangled and suffocated Reverand Clint Dobson in the North Pointed Baptist Church in Arlington in 2011. Dobson's secretary Judy Elliott was also terribly beaten but survived her injuries.
Despite reports of his protest when entering the room, he appeared in peace with his fate in his very last moments, repeatedly against his new wife that he loved her and was grateful to her while looking through the window.
His wife, Helene Noa Dubois, held a white dog at the window that she was allowed to bring to the witness area while Nelson said, “Give Monkey a hug for me.”
“I'm not afraid, it's cold here. But I'm in peace, I'm ready to be home, “said Nelson. “Let's drive, bee.”
He had asked his spiritual adviser and death penalty, Jeff Hood, to be in the execution room with him 'to pray about me and to give me last rides.' Hood told Usatoday that Nelson “fought until the end.”
“It took them forever to explain that he had passed,” Hood said after the execution. “He fought to the end.”
Steven Lawayne Nelson was put to death on Wednesday evening in the second planned execution in the United States before 2025 after he was beaten in the North Pointhe Baptist Church in the North PieTist Church in Arlingon in the North Pointe Baptist Church in Arlingon in 2011 stifled and stifled
Clint Dobson who was convicted of Nelson for murders in 2011. Dobson was beaten and suffocated and Judy Elliott, the church secretary, was also badly beaten but survived
He recently married in the death cell. His new wife Helene Noa Dubois joined Nelson through a prison letter writing program in 2020
He was not entitled to a final 'death cell' meal under a unique law of Texas that abolished the luxury in 2011.
Nelson has always maintained his innocence, claiming that he acted as a lookout and robbed the 28-year-old Pastor while blaming his death on two accomplices.
Various last ditch offers to avoid the death penalty – of which the last few hours ago – had failed.
Death row prisoners in the United States where the death penalty is used often have famous right to a 'last meal' in which they can generally request comfort food.
But Texas no longer offers it after Lawrence Russell Brewer placed an order for a Triple Meat Bacon Cheeseburger, Meat Lovers Pizza, Three Fajitas, a pound of barbecuq, two chicken fried steaks, a pint ice and a peanut butter fudge with his prior to his Execution, only to refuse to touch something when it arrived.
The stunt led to a stir among legislators and the 'death cell meal' was excluded from that moment. Now prisoners who are confronted with execution are offered the same food as any other prisoner.
Nelson is planned for the first of four prisoners in Texas to be performed in the next three months.
The last prisoner in the state was Robert Roberson, who was put to death on October 17, 2024.
The death cell prisoner Steven Nelson speaks from prison. Nelson, 37, was convicted of the murder of Clint Dobson 2011, a 28-year-old pastor, during a robbery of the North Pointhe Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas
Nelson with his French wife Helene Noa Dubois. Nelson said he is afraid of leaving his wife alone and it is up to her to decide whether she wants to witness his execution
Test Card showed Nelson's fingerprints and pieces of his broken belt on the crime scene, drops of the blood of the victims on his sneakers and security video that lets him drive by Elliott's car and used her credit cards
Nelson was a failure of the worker and high school with a long history of legal problems and arrests that already started at the age of six.
He recently married in the death cell. His new wife, Dubois, connected to Nelson via a prison letter program in 2020.
“We first started as friends and as the years progressed, the love and the feelings progressed more and we married on December 4,” he said.
Nelson said he is afraid of leaving his wife alone and he had left the choice to her if she wanted to be present and witnessed his death.
The prisoner added that this would be his first human contact in 13 years.
Nelson said that in the last decades he has spent 22 to 24 hours a day in a cell of 8 by 10 feet. As his implementation date approaches, he is now under constant video surveillance.
The now 37-year-old witnessed during his trial and maintained that he was waiting for about 25 minutes outside the church before he went inside and saw that Dobson and Judy Elliott were defeated. He insisted that Dobson was still alive when he left.
Teaching certificate showed that Nelson's fingerprints and pieces of his broken belt on the crime scene, drops of the blood of the victims on his sneakers and surveillance videos that let him drive with the car of Elliott and her credit cards.
“We first started as friends and as the years progressed, the love and the feelings progressed more and we married on December 4,” he said
Researchers also said that the two men who blamed Nelson for the attack, alibis were: telephone records posted one of them at 30 miles away, and telephone records and a registration sheet placed the other man in a chemical class.
Nelson's lawyers have appealed to claims of poor legal representation in his trial and conviction, and said these lawyers did little to challenge the alibis of the other men, or the mitigating proof of a troubled youth in Oklahoma and Texas to present.
His earlier appeal was refused by national and federal courts and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay of execution on January 28.
In anticipation of the process, Nelson was charged with killing another prisoner. He was never tried on that indictment after his guilty judgment and death sentence.
During his trial, Nelson broke an electronic shock cuff from his ankle and later broke a water pipe into a detention cell, causing the courtroom to flood with wrong black water.
He was also regularly disconnected from his handcuffs and single restrictions by using a key that he clogged near his genitals.
Three more executions are planned in Texas for the end of April.
The first is planned for February 13. Richard Lee Tabler was convicted of shooting a strip club manager and the friend of the manager at Thanksgiving Weekend in 2004.
Tabler also acknowledged to kill two dancers from the club. He was accused of their murders, but never tried in their death.
