Nelson, 37, was put to death by lethal injection for smothering Clint Dobson, a 28-year-old pastor and husband, during a botched robbery at

Steven Lawayne Nelson maintained that he unknowingly participated in the violent church robbery but didn’t harm anyone. His execution was the state’s first for 2025.

A Texas man convicted of beating and suffocating a Dallas area pastor in his church during a robbery was put to death Wednesday evening, the second execution in the U.S. this year and the first of four scheduled in Texas over the next three months.