A 37-year-old Texas man slated to be executed later this week pleaded for his life while criticizing the system that placed him on death row.
"I am not the monster they say I am," Steven Nelson told News Nation.
In the interview, Nelson said that he was only a lookout and did not directly participate in the events that led to the murder of Pastor Clint Dobson at a Dallas area church in 2011. Dobson was suffocated and a 69-year-old church secretary was badly beaten, News Nation reported.
Nelson is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on Wednesday, February 5.
Nelson said evidence not presented at trial shows "I did not kill anybody. It also shows how the judicial system is made for you to lose at all costs. No matter what."
Police and prosecutors maintained throughout the trial and since that Nelson was directly responsible for Dobson's murder and the assault on the secretary, NBC News reported. They presented evidence at trial that Nelson took credit cards and a car following the murder at the church.
Nelson attempted to reach out to Dobson's family through the church, but they responded by reaching out to the Department of Corrections to have the phone calls blocked, News Nation reported.
"I would like to apologize for my actions and the role that I played even though I was not the person who assaulted her," Nelson said. "It still hurts to this day that I couldn't do nothing at the time."
In the interview he said he wrote a letter to the woman and tried to have it delivered through the church, but it was declined.
"People do deserve a second chance," Nelson said. "I'm not a lost cause. I'm not beyond help."
Nelson had previously been convicted of crimes, CBS News reported.
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/police-investigating-homicide-at-arlington-church/
Nelson had convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in and received eight years of probation. Between 2005 and the Dobson murder, Nelson served jail time for convictions of property theft, burglary and unauthorized use of a vehicle in the Dallas and Fort Worth area CBS News reported.
During Nelson's trial in 2012, other inmates testified that he tormented a mentally ill inmate and that he eventually used a blanket to hang the man, CBS News reported.
"He reached through the bars and wrapped it around his neck, and the boy let him," CBS quoted the unnamed inmate. "He [Nelson] kept asking if the four minutes was up, because that's how long it took to kill somebody."
