A mom in Denver, Colorado, urged caution after she heard a mysterious voice through her baby’s Nanit monitor, believing the device was hacked.
Texas man Robert Roberson is being considered for execution despite his murder conviction being questioned by skeptics in the years since he was found guilty. In light of his execution, Mod Moms Club breaks down everything to know about his case.
What Crime Was Robert Roberson Accused Of?
Roberson was convicted of murder for his alleged involvement in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis.
The Associated Press reported that prosecutors claimed Nikki died of shaken baby syndrome and that Roberson had killed her.
According to The Mayo Clinic, shaken baby syndrome “is a serious brain injury that results from forcefully shaking an infant or a toddler. It also is known as abusive head trauma, shaken impact syndrome, inflicted head injury or whiplash shaken infant syndrome.”
However, Roberson's attorneys claimed he didn’t kill Nikki and she instead died after suffering from numerous health issues that stemmed from acute viral pneumonia and inappropriate medication prescribed by doctors.
Robert Roberson Was Scheduled to Be Executed
Roberson was given a death sentence when he was convicted in 2003. He was previously scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in 2024, though it was halted by the Texas Supreme Court and was later scheduled for October 16, 2025. However, his attorneys fought to have the decision reconsidered.
Robert Roberson’s Attorneys Seek to Stop His Execution
In a filing to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on October 6, Roberson’s attorneys wrote that a recent interview Lester Holt did with Nikki’s maternal grandfather is “directly relevant to the judicial misconduct claim,” according to NBC News. The legal team went on to allege that it is a “serious violation of Mr. Roberson’s fundamental right to a trial before an impartial tribunal — and before a tribunal that appears impartial.”
“It’s shocking that we are discovering the truth about this glaring, undisclosed evidence of bias only by chance, from a podcast, days before Robert is scheduled to be executed for a tragedy that has been mislabeled as a crime,” Gretchen Sween, a lawyer for Roberson, said in a statement, per the outlet.
On October 9, it was revealed that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution. The ruling from the Court of Criminal Appeals ordered the trial court to weigh Roberson's arguments for overturning his conviction, according to CBS News.
The decision was based on Texas' junk science law, which allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence previously used against them is no longer credible.
What Details About the Case Were Revealed on Lester Holt’s Podcast?
During the October 6 episode of Holt’s “The Last Appeal” podcast, Larry Bowman, Nikki’s maternal grandfather, claimed Anderson County Judge Bascom Bentley directed the hospital to contact the Bowmans for permission to authorize removing Nikki from life support after Roberson took her to the hospital.
“Matter of fact, Judge Bentley told ’em we were the parents,” Bowman said.
In the filing, Roberson’s lawyers said the Bowmans did not have that authority since Roberson had custody of Nikki and was named her sole conservator in November 2001. At the time, he was raising Nikki alone after her mother lost custody due to personal issues.
Not only did Bentley allegedly give false information to the hospital, but Roberson’s legal team claimed he was the judge who signed Roberson’s arrest warrant based on the “shaken baby syndrome” diagnosis. He also presided over all but one proceeding in Roberson’s criminal trial.
According to Roberson’s lawyers, Bentley’s involvement in the early stages of the case adds to their larger claim of judicial misconduct that they believe tainted his trial.
“Any objective member of the public, with knowledge of the new facts, would reasonably believe that Judge Bentley had prejudged Mr. Roberson’s guilt and, animated by that presumption of guilt, improperly circumvented the law governing parental rights and the guarantees of due process and thus should have recused himself from presiding over Mr. Roberson’s criminal case to preserve the appearance of impartiality,” the court filing said, per NBC News. “Judge Bentley’s failure to do so caused structural error and requires a new trial.”
