Southwest
Texas convict issues last message to wife before execution for killing pastor
A Texas man convicted of killing a pastor in his own church during a robbery, days after being released from a court-ordered anger management program, was put to death Wednesday evening.
Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. local time following a lethal injection that was administered at a state penitentiary in Huntsville.
Prior to the injection, Nelson repeatedly told his wife, who was watching through a window a short distance from him with a white service dog she was allowed to bring into the witness area, that he loved her and that he was thankful and grateful, the Associated Press reported.
“It is what it is,” Nelson said during his opportunity for final words. “I’m not scared. I’m at peace. Let’s ride, Warden.”
TEXAS TO EXECUTE MAN WHO KILLED PASTOR IN CHURCH DAYS AFTER BEING RELEASED FROM ANGER MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
File photo of Texas death row inmate Steven Lawayne Nelson in a visiting cage at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit outside Livingston, Texas, on Dec. 5, 2012. (Michael Graczyk, File)
As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital was being given, Nelson told Helene Noa Dubois, who married him recently while he was in prison, “Let me go to sleep.” The drug appeared to take effect as he said the word, “Love,” then he gasped twice and appeared to try to hold his breath. His head, shoulders and arms trembled for a few seconds before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later.
Nelson was sentenced to death for the 2011 murder of Rev. Clint Dobson, 28, who was beaten, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag inside NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington. Nelson killed Dobson as he was sitting in his office writing a sermon.
Nelson claimed that he had only served as a robbery lookout and blamed two other men for killing Dobson. He said he waited outside the church for about 25 minutes before going in and seeing that Dobson and church secretary Judy Elliott had been beaten. He insisted Dobson was still alive at the time.
Nelson said he took Dobson’s laptop and that one of the other two men who participated in the robbery gave him Elliott’s car keys and credit cards. The two victims were located by Elliott’s husband, the church’s part-time music minister, who did not immediately recognize her because she had been so severely beaten, the Associated Press reported.
OKLAHOMA EXECUTES MAN CONVICTED OF GRISLY MURDER OF 10-YEAR-OLD GIRL
Steven Nelson was convicted of killing Pastor Clint Dobson in his Arlington church in 2011. (Obtained by KDFW)
Nelson was captured after going on a shopping spree using the victims’ stolen credit cards, Fox Dallas reported.
Three days before the killing, Nelson had been released from a court-ordered anger management program as part of a deal with Dallas County prosecutors after he was arrested for aggravated assault on his girlfriend.
Relatives of the victims declined to speak with reporters and released statements earlier on Wednesday.
Steven Lawayne Nelson takes the witness stand to testify in his own defense in his capital murder trial on Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Joyce Marshall/Star-Telegram)
“As a family, we have chosen to take this day to focus on the great memories we have of Clint rather than giving time to his killer,” Dobson’s family said in their statement. “Steven Nelson forever changed our lives, but he has never occupied our minds…. We miss Clint every day. We miss his laughter and his wit, his advice and his love for us.”
Bradley Elliott, whose mother Judy survived the attack, said: “I hope that today as Mr. Nelson took his last breath that he was greeted by the same loving and gracious Savior that has stood by us through all we have been a part of.” The statement added: “Mr. Nelson, we forgive you and hope to see you when we are called home from here.”
This photo shows a gurney used in giving lethal injections to convicted death row inmates. (Sue Ogrocki, File)
Nelson’s attorneys appealed the conviction, claiming he had bad legal representation at his trial, saying they failed to challenge the alibis of the two other men and didn’t present mitigating evidence of a troubled childhood in Oklahoma and Texas.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson told Fox News Digital via email that condemned inmates no longer make last meal requests, but rather “choose from the menu that is available to all inmates at the Hunstsville Unit where the execution is carried out.”
Wednesday’s main dish options were lemon pepper chicken and a cheeseburger, with a wide variety of sides and “swirl pudding” for dessert.
Nelson’s execution is the second in the U.S. this year and the first of four scheduled in Texas over the next three months.
Fox News’ Louis Casiano and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Southwest
Savannah Guthrie spotted in NYC as search for missing mother enters sixth week with few answers
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TUCSON, Ariz. — “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie is back in New York City as the search for her missing mother enters its sixth week with little publicly known progress in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona.
Guthrie was photographed in public for the first time since her mother’s suspected abduction, alongside husband Mike Feldman and their young son in the Big Apple Sunday, days after an emotional reunion with her NBC colleagues and more than a month after her 84-year-old mother Nancy was last seen.
Nancy’s disappearance shocked the country — especially when the FBI released disturbing surveillance video of a masked man on her doorstep.
Savannah Guthrie spent weeks in Tucson with her siblings as the investigation played out — before she and her older sister, Annie, added bouquets of yellow flowers to a growing display at the foot of their mother’s driveway. She quietly flew home to New York last week.
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Savannah Guthrie is seen out in New York with her husband Michael Feldman as the “Today” show anchor makes her first public appearance more than five weeks after the suspected abduction of her mother, Nancy Guthrie. (ASPN / BACKGRID)
Sunday marked five weeks since the suspected kidnapping.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is leading the investigation, which is now being overseen by a task force consisting of local detectives and FBI agents.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
No suspects have been publicly identified.
A masked man who appeared on Nancy Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera around the time authorities said she was taken is described as being of average height and build and carrying a black Ozark Trail backpack.
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Savannah Guthrie and her mother, Nancy Guthrie, are pictured Thursday, June 15, 2023. (Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
He appeared to be armed with a handgun as well. Law enforcement sources said he visited Nancy Guthrie’s home at least once in advance of her disappearance, wearing a similar disguise.
Other identifying details are scarce.
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The use of cadaver dogs is also on hold, according to authorities, who re-canvassed Nancy Guthrie’s neighborhood as recently as last week.
When asked if that meant they believed she is still alive, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos declined to discuss evidence in the case.
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“Anything is possible,” he told Fox News Digital.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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There’s a reward of more than $1.2 million in play for information that leads to Nancy’s recovery.
Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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FBI subpoenas 2020 Arizona voting docs as federal push into election administration widens
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An Arizona state lawmaker revealed Monday that federal authorities subpoenaed him for records related to the 2020 election, marking the second publicly confirmed jurisdiction the Department of Justice is investigating over the matter.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, said in a social media post he received the subpoena for material related to the state Senate’s 2020 audit last week and complied with it.
“Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate’s 2020 audit of Maricopa County,” Petersen wrote. “The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news.”
The request represents an expansion of a federal probe tied to 2020 after the DOJ initially targeted Fulton County, Georgia. The development also comes as President Donald Trump has grown increasingly outspoken about election security in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, renewing his attention on disputes stemming from the last presidential race.
FBI AGENTS SEARCH ELECTION HUB IN FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA
An election worker removes a ballot from an envelope to count and inspect the pages inside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Petersen made the revelation after President Donald Trump shared a Just the News report about the subpoena on Truth Social, writing, “Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona’s largest county as voting probe expands.”
Multiple U.S. officials confirmed the election probe to Fox News, saying the DOJ is looking at a large tranche of Arizona data from 2020 and 2024.
President Donald Trump listens during an event about the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Wednesday, March 4, 2026, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
The White House directed Fox News Digital to the FBI on Monday when asked for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an elected Democrat, said the new investigation was based on claims that courts and state investigators have proven wrong.
“What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry,” Mayes said in a statement. “It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”
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Attendees listen as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) speaks at an “Only Citizens Vote” bus tour rally advocating passage of the SAVE Act at Upper Senate Park outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on Sept. 10, 2025. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
The subpoena comes as the president increasingly focuses on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms, telling Congress in a social media post on Sunday that he will not sign any legislation into law until it passes the SAVE America Act.
The bill’s primary purpose is to require voters nationwide to show physical identification to prove citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version of the bill Trump is pushing would also ban mail-in ballots except for the military and in other extenuating circumstances.
Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, was a hotbed for accusations of voter fraud in 2020. Fulton County, Georgia, faced similar accusations, with the DOJ launching a separate investigation into the 2020 election earlier this year.
Trump lost Arizona in 2020 by about 0.3 percentage points. The president refused to concede, and his legal team brought a series of lawsuits alleging vote-counting irregularities, but none were successful.
Fox News’ David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
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Wisconsin man who fled Border Patrol checkpoint in stolen car killed after shootout in Texas, police say
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FIRST ON FOX: A Wisconsin man driving a stolen vehicle was killed Wednesday after he fled through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint and led authorities on a vehicle chase and shootout in Texas.
The incident happened at around 10:30 a.m. at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint in the Big Bend Sector between El Paso and Van Horn, a remote area.
James Douglas McMillan, 33, of Greenfield, Wis., took off from the checkpoint after a Border Patrol drug K-9 alerted to the vehicle and agents directed McMillan to pull over for a secondary search, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
A migrant walks through the Rio Grande as he crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, March 13, 2024, in El Paso, Texas. On Wednesday, a man was shot and killed by authorities near El Paso after fleeing through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. (John Moore/Getty Images)
During the car chase, McMillan opened fire out of his vehicle window at DPS troopers and other authorities from several law enforcement agencies and civilian vehicles, DPS said.
“As law enforcement returned fire, DPS Troopers performed a precision immobilization technique (PIT) maneuver and successfully stopped the suspect vehicle,” a DPS statement said.
McMillan barricaded himself in his vehicle and eventually pointed his weapon towards officers, prompting officers to open fire, authorities said.
He was shot and killed. No law enforcement officers or civilians were hurt.
Investigators determined McMillan was driving a vehicle reported stolen in Arizona. The shooting is being investigated by the Texas Rangers, with assistance from the FBI and USBP.
The shooting involved Border Patrol agents and DPS troopers. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)
In January, a man suspected of smuggling illegal immigrants was shot by federal officers during a gunfire exchange in Arizona.
Patrick Gary Schlegel, 34, fled from authorities on foot and allegedly shot at a CBP helicopter and at agents, Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix Division, said at the time.
A U.S. Border Patrol officer watches a USBP helicopter. (Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)
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Schlegal, a U.S. citizen from Arizona, underwent surgery and survived. No one else was harmed, authorities said.
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