Texas pastor with simple dream killed in his own church. Who was the Rev. Clint Dobson?

The Rev. Clint 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.

But Dobson never really got that chance. He was murdered inside his own church at the age of 28 during a robbery on March 3, 2011, leaving behind a grief-stricken wife and a shell-shocked congregation.

"He was a fine, young preacher, but a much better person," Dennis Wiles, the pastor of First Baptist Arlington Church who hand-picked Dobson to lead Northpointe Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said at a 2011 news conference, according to KXAS-TV. "He was our friend and our brother in Christ."

Now 14 years later, Texas is set to execute the man convicted of killing Dobson. Steven Nelson admitted to taking part in the robbery but has always maintained that two accomplices committed the 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 told jurors. "I didn't know this much evil existed in the world."

As Nelson's execution approaches, USA TODAY is looking back at the crime, who Dobson was and what made him special.

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Slain pastor took early liking to church

Robert Creech, a professor of Christian ministries at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, 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.

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

As he watched the young man grow and eventually attend school at Baylor, Creech got to know him even more.

"He was quick to smile, embrace a friend, and engage in conversation that could be light-hearted and full of laughter or that could rapidly move into the depths of theological thought," Creech wrote. "Clint’s contributions to our lives and to God’s Kingdom, which are all out of proportion to his years, will continue to bear fruit for many years."

Brady Herbert, Dobson’s friend and roommate at Baylor, spoke during Dobson’s memorial service, saying that his friend "had that rare combination of a love for truth and a love for people.

"He did not allow his love for Scripture to stay in his mind. It sunk deep into his heart and out into his hands and into his feet," Herbert said, according to Baylor University.

At Nelson's sentencing hearing, Dobson's father-in-law, Phillip Rozeman, told the condemned man: "You didn’t take Clint’s life; you shortened it ... He gave it away to others a long time ago.”

An emotional Laura Dobson told Nelson during the hearing that he "wrecked so many lives," according to an Associated Press story.

"After this trial is over, no one will want to remember you," she told him, according to the Dallas Morning News. "But people will most definitely remember Clint."

Flowers at a gravesite.

Church supports conviction, says Dobson's legacy lives on

Dobson's former church supports the execution, causing an ecclesiastical rift between its leaders and clemency activists advocating for Nelson.

First Baptist has opposed efforts to overturn Nelson’s conviction and has supported his upcoming execution. USA TODAY has reached out to First Baptist Arlington multiple times for comment and did not receive a response.

"As the Bible teaches us, God has placed the civil authority in our midst so that innocent people can live in freedom without fear and so that guilty offenders can be appropriately punished,” Wiles, the First Baptist pastor, said in a statement issued after Nelson’s 2012 sentencing.

The Rev. Jeff Hood, an anti-death penalty advocate and death row spiritual advisor, has criticized the church's support of the execution.

"On a very basic level, we're talking about a gut question: Would Jesus kill Steven Nelson?" Hood previously told USA TODAY. "The only moment in the Gospels that we have of Jesus' engagement with execution is in the book of John, chapter eight, where the woman committed adultery. Jesus is there with her and says, 'You who are without sin, cast the first stone' ... First Baptist Arlington has been readying their stones since 2011."

Death row inmate Steven Nelson is seen at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas in a photo taken by his wife Noa Dubois.

Church grows in memory of slain pastor

During a 2021 remembrance Wiles described Dobson as "full of mischief" and that he was "larger than life in so many ways."

Wiles also said that the church that Dobson left behind had grown to fullfill his dream.

"The church that's here is providing life and witness and giving a testimony to this community about the beauty of the gospel, but there’s also a school here” Wiles said. “This school is filled with children every single day … that means this place is filled with life. Well, that’s what the gospel brings and Clint’s legacy lives."