HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas man convicted of beating and suffocating a Dallas area pastor in his church during a robbery was put to death Wednesday evening, the second execution in the U.S. this year.

Steven Lawayne Nelson, 37, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was convicted of the 2011 killing of the Rev. Clint Dobson, a 28-year-old pastor who was beaten, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag inside NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington. The church’s secretary, Judy Elliott, 67, was severely beaten but survived.

Shortly before the injection began, the inmate repeatedly told his wife, who watched through a window, that he loved her and that he was thankful and grateful. “It is what it is,” Nelson said.

As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began to be administered, he told the woman, Helene Noa Dubois, “Let me go to sleep.” The drug appeared to take effect as he said the word, “Love.” He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later.

— The Associated Press