UPDATE: 10:30 a.m.
The capital murder trial of Steven Lawayne Nelson has adjourned for the day. Testimony will resume Monday, with the defense expected to put on experts witnesses who can talk about Nelson's mental illness.
-Dianna Hunt
Wrenching testimony of the devastation wrought by convicted killer Steven Lawayne Nelson brought a close to the prosecution's case for the death penalty in the brutal suffocation slaying of an Arlington pastor.
Laura Dobson, widow of Clint Dobson, told jurors that she has spent the past year and a half of her life trying to recover from the loss of her new husband and the future they had planned together.
'Like Clint, we always tried to see the good in people," Dobson told jurors. "I didn't know this much evil existed in the world."
Dobson's father, cardiologist Phillip Rozeman of Shreveport, La., testified that the family will have to help his daughter reconstruct her life once the trial is over.
"It's been 589 days since Clint died, and almost every single one of them we've talked about this trial," he said. "We're going to have to have to reconstruct her life."
Dobson's sister, Sarah Mitchell, told jurors tearfully that the loss has devastated her and her parents.
"It's a hole in our lives that nothing can ever fill," she said.
Nelson was convicted earlier this week of capital murder in the death of Clint Dobson, 28, pastor of NorthPointe Baptist Church in north Arlington. Dobson was beaten, bound and suffocated with a plastic bag during a robbery of the church building. Church secretary Judy Elliott was beaten and left for dead, but survived.
Prosecutors Bob Gill and Page Simpson are seeking the death penalty. Nelson could also face life in prison without parole.
Elliott watched the testimony from the courtroom but didn't take the stand. Her husband, John Elliott, took the witness stand instead and said she was fearful even for him to testify.
-Dianna Hunt
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