Defense set in sentencing of pastor's killer

FORT WORTH, TX

The defense can begin offering evidence Monday that Steven Lawayne Nelson should be spared the death penalty for the March 2011 killing of the Rev. Clint Dobson. The prosecution rested its case Friday.

Jurors have the option of sentencing Nelson to life imprisonment without parole.

The 25-year-old Nelson was convicted in the suffocation death of Dobson at Arlington's NorthPointe Baptist Church. Nelson also beat the church secretary so severely that she suffered memory problems.

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