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Texas death row inmate's lawyer says 'there was no crime' as she makes last-ditch effort to save his life
EXCLUSIVE: A Texas death row inmate is scheduled to be executed next week for his conviction of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002, but his lawyer argues that not only is her client innocent, nobody is responsible for the little girl’s death.
Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17. Prosecutors said his daughter, Nikki Curtis, was killed after sustaining injuries caused by being violently shaken, known as shaken baby syndrome. Roberson would be the first person in the U.S. to be executed based on shaken baby syndrome.
More than 80 Texas state lawmakers, as well as the detective who helped the prosecution, medical experts, parental rights groups, human rights groups, bestselling novelist John Grisham and other advocates have called for the state to grant Roberson clemency over the belief that he is innocent. A group of state lawmakers even visited him in prison to encourage him.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, his longtime lawyer, Gretchen Sween, says shaken baby syndrome has been debunked and that Nikki’s actual cause of death has been revealed to be from other health issues such as pneumonia, which is a lung infection.
BIPARTISAN GROUP OF TEXAS LAWMAKERS DEMAND CONVICTED KILLER’S EXECUTION BE HALTED: ‘SERIOUS DOUBTS’
Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Oct. 17. (Roberson Family)
Roberson, who has maintained his innocence, took his daughter to the hospital in 2002 after he woke up and found her unconscious with blue lips. Doctors at the time were skeptical of Roberson’s claim that his daughter had fallen off the bed while they were sleeping, with some testifying at trial that her symptoms were consistent with the signs of shaken baby syndrome.
“I believe he is innocent for two distinct reasons,” Sween told Fox News Digital. “The theory that there was a crime that was used to convict him, which was then known as the shaken baby syndrome hypothesis, has been thoroughly discredited. There is no one now who would say the version of that hypothesis that was put before his jury as if it were scientific fact is legitimate.”
“Also, I know from the experts that had dug into his daughter’s medical records and examined the evidence that this exceedingly ill child died from undiagnosed pneumonia that was [ravaging] her lungs, combined with very dangerous prescription medications she was given in the last few days of her life,” she continued. “And it’s not to suggest that doctors did this intentionally. It’s just they didn’t know about the pneumonia.”
The doctors, she says, observed Nikki’s symptoms and believed they suggested a cold or flu, and they gave her an antihistamine and codeine, medications that suppress breathing.
“Pneumonia is a disease of the lungs,” Sween said. “You have this child struggling to breathe given these medications, and she collapses and ceases breathing in the night. We now know what happened to this child, and we know what the state said happened 20-something years ago is just not true.”
Many medical professionals, including those from Stanford University Medical Center, University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Minnesota Hospital, now say that doctors diagnose shaken baby syndrome too soon before taking into account a child’s medical history.
Sween said it is “maddening” that there is what she believes is “overwhelming” and “compelling” evidence that the courts have yet to examine.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals previously halted his execution in 2016. However, last year the court allowed the case to resume, and a new date was set to carry out Roberson’s death.
On Monday, Roberson’s lawyers asked a Texas court to stay his execution and reconsider his innocence based on new scientific evidence. His lawyers also urged the court to reconsider its previous denial of habeas relief based on new evidence that further shows how a groundbreaking state law designed to prevent wrongful convictions was not applied as intended in his case.
Sween says she will make every appeal she knows to make to help spare her client’s life, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Texas law allows the governor to grant a one-time, 30-day reprieve from execution. But full clemency requires a recommendation from the majority of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is appointed by the governor.
Robert Roberson III was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter in 2002. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
Since GOP Gov. Greg Abbott was sworn into office in 2015, he has granted clemency in only one death row case, when he commuted Thomas Whitaker’s death sentence to life in prison an hour before his scheduled execution in 2018. Whitaker had been convicted of arranging a plot that left his mother and brother fatally shot and his father wounded.
But Sween says Roberson’s case is different from previous death penalty cases because it is an “actual innocence case,” where not only was Roberson wrongly accused, but there was no crime at all.
“If that doesn’t merit a use of executive power, I don’t know what does,” Sween said.
Abbott’s office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles did not respond to Fox News Digitals’ requests for comment.
Prosecutors maintain that the evidence against Roberson remains sound and that the science of shaken baby syndrome has not changed as much as his defense argues.
“That’s just not defensible,” Sween said of prosecutors’ claims the science has not changed. She also noted that the American Academy for Pediatrics, which she says is responsible for the shaken baby syndrome becoming widely known, states in its current consensus statement that abuse must not be diagnosed until every other possible cause of the same conditions is eliminated.
She also said there is no proof that shaking caused Nikki’s symptoms and cited multiple studies showing that there are several other possible explanations for the child’s death. She also pointed to studies showing that there has never been a case where shaking can cause internal bleeding outside the brain or a brain injury.
Sween also pointed out that Nikki, at2-years-old, was not a baby and the anatomy of a 2-year-old is different from that of a baby.
Shaken baby syndrome was theorized years ago as a possible explanation for mysterious deaths of infants who suffered internal head conditions, subdural bleeding, brain swelling and sometimes retinal hemorrhages. But Sween says the theory was never tested and was still treated as established fact.
“Now we know all these medical conditions can cause the same symptoms,” she said. “So how can you say abuse can be diagnosed when something like pneumonia can cause the same internal condition? So, I think respectfully, the state is simply wrong in this.”
Sween also cited a similar case in a different part of Texas that was tried a couple of years before Roberson’s. In that case in Dallas, which featured the same child abuse expert that was used in Roberson’s case in Palestine, Texas, prosecutors representing the state conceded the science has changed and agreed that that man deserves a new trial.
Roberson’s attorneys have also argued that his demeanor was wrongfully used against him, as he is autistic. He did not seem like a distraught parent, which Sween says can be attributed to his autism.
“This started when he brought his child to the hospital,” Sween said. “She was comatose. He didn’t know how to explain her condition. His demeanor, from the outset, was judged as just odd, off, weird. There are all these judgments made that then became part of the trial testimony. Multiple witnesses told the jury that this was a reason to suspect him, his off demeanor. Now, of course, none of these doctors or nurses or law enforcement knew that Robert had autism.”
Part of autism, Sween says, is that a person may often shut down when they have a crisis of emotion and do not show the emotions they feel on the inside. She said this was the case with Roberson, who was not diagnosed with autism until 2018.
“And that was his condition, and it stayed, but there are even references to this in his records way before this happened with Nikki,” she said. “But he’d never been properly diagnosed. He’d been, you know, a special needs kid, poor kid, living on the edge of town, got some help through Medicaid, was put in special ed classes, but he was never given a thorough diagnosis, a workup to figure out what was going on.”
Roberson said the outpouring of support from various people and groups who believe he is innocent has made a difference to him, according to Sween, who said he had not felt “as human,” as he described, in a long time as he did when state lawmakers visited him and expressed solidarity with him.
Texas Senate Bill 1578, enacted in 2021, allows parents accused of child abuse by a medical professional to seek a second medical opinion from an independent doctor who specializes in the child’s specific medical condition. But Roberson did not benefit from this law, since it came nearly 20 years after his conviction.
MISSOURI, TEXAS EXECUTE 2 INMATES OVER KILLINGS OF WOMAN, INFANT AS MORE EXPECTED IN OTHER STATES
Since GOP Gov. Greg Abbott was sworn into office in 2015, he has granted clemency in only one death row case. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
Sween also said Roberson’s case should raise concerns about capital punishment, even among people who support the death penalty, given the “really irrefutable evidence from experts with decades of experience pointing out the pneumonia in this child’s lungs.”
“If no court can hear that, and that is a reason then to kill somebody, I think it becomes hard to feel confident that Texas doesn’t frequently risk executing the innocent,” she said. “And I don’t know of anyone who would take the moral position that executing people for crimes that did not occur is somehow legitimate.”
As for Roberson’s mindset ahead of his scheduled execution, Sween said he seems to be fluctuating between being scared and being happy that people are concerned about the case.
“Every time he learns there are new people that care about the case, he gets this sort of childlike enthusiasm and feels hopeful again,” she said. “So it’s a kind of byproduct of his disability. And one of the things that I think helps him is that if you tell him, you know, we still have things to try and do, then he gets optimistic again. So he doesn’t go into complex philosophical thinking about this. He just doesn’t understand why he hasn’t already gone home.”
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Austin bar shooting bodycam released as DA makes major call about cops who shot suspected terrorist
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Bodycam video from the Austin mass shooting, which is being investigated as a terrorist attack, was released on Thursday as the county’s liberal district attorney announced he would take no action against the three officers who killed the suspect.
In 911 audio released by the Austin Police Department along with the bodycam video, one individual told the operator that he “heard like six gunshots.”
“We’re hiding between cars,” the caller said. “There has been a shooting at Buford’s on 6th St. There are people dead over here. There have been multiple people shot. We need help right now.”
In one surveillance video released by police, the shooter, identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, can be seen walking around a parking lot with an AR-15 before opening fire on someone nearby.
53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne killed three people and injured over a dozen more people, Austin police said. (Austin Police Department)
Officers can be seen in bodycam video directing bystanders to get down before opening fire on Diagne, who was killed.
Travis County District Attorney José Garza announced Wednesday that no action would be taken against the three police officers who killed Diagne. Diagne shot and killed three people and left more than a dozen other people injured on Sunday outside a bar in Austin, Texas.
“Today, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office notified the Austin Police Department that it has formally concluded its review of the mass shooting on 6th Street and will take no action against the three officers who stopped the shooting,” the news release stated.
Under a 2021 policy by Garza’s office, all officer-involved shooting cases were to be presented to a grand jury.
Bodaycam footage shows the night of a shooting in Austin, Texas. (KTBC)
District Attorney Jose Garza speaks at a news conference on Feb. 19, 2026. (Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
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Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock told Fox News Digital he wishes Garza would have made the decision to not convene a grand jury much earlier, and said police officers are under constant fear of being targeted by the liberal district attorney.
“The reality is APD officers are more afraid of the DA targeting them than a gunman shooting at them,” Bullock told Fox News Digital.
Shooter approaches a bar with a rifle in Austin, Texas. (KTBC)
Police officers guard the scene after a shooting on March 1, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Bullock said it’s the first time Garza hasn’t presented an officer-involved shooting to a grand jury since implementing the policy.
Doug O’Connell, a criminal defense attorney representing the Austin police officers, told Fox News the 2021 policy was instituted at the direction of the Wren Collective, which is a criminal-justice reform group providing financial support to progressive prosecutors.
“When our current district attorney came into office about six years ago, he instituted this policy at the direction of the Wren Collective, and it’s been in place since that time. Every officer-involved shooting has been presented to the grand jury,” O’Connell said. “It’s not required by law. It is simply a policy decision that he’s instituted at the direction of Wren Collective.”
Bullock said the Wren Collective has recently pushed “to increase the number of indictments against officers which can only be done through grand jury.”
TEXAS DA SAYS NO CHARGES FOR POLICE IN TERROR ATTACK RESPONSE, AMID CRITICISM OF MANDATORY GRAND JURY REVIEW
The Austin Police Department released a photo of Ndiaga Diagne as the suspect tied to Sunday’s mass shooting. (Austin Police Department)
National Police Association spokesperson Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith told Fox News Digital that investigations into officer-involved shootings should be internal.
“A grand jury is basically a secret process and is controlled by the prosecutor. These officers cannot have a defense attorney or a union representative in the grand jury,” Smith said. “He is well known as one of the most anti-police district attorneys in the nation.”
Garza previously called the officers that killed Diagne “heroes.” The shooting happened at Austin’s Buford’s Backyard Beer garden shortly before 2 a.m. on Sunday.
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Federal agents comb the scene of a potential terrorist attack in Austin, Texas. (Aaron E. Martinez/Getty Images)
FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Alex Doran said during a press conference on Sunday that while investigators are still looking for a possible motive, there were “indicators that on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism.”
Law enforcement sources told Fox News that the shooter was wearing a sweatshirt that read “Property of Allah“ as well as an undershirt with an Iranian flag. The sources said a Quran was also found in Diagne’s car. According to CBS News, Diagne had pictures of Iranian leaders at his home as well as an Iranian flag.
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Savitha Shan, 21, Ryder Harrington, 19 and Jorge Pederson, 30, were killed in the shooting, authorities said during a Monday press conference.
Diagne initially entered the United States in 2000 on a B-2 tourist visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security, becoming a lawful permanent resident in 2006 after marrying a U.S. citizen.
On April 5, 2013, Diagne became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
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The Austin Police Department and the FBI investigate a shooting at Buford’s on West 6th Street in Austin on March 1, 2026. (Stephanie Tacy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said Diagne “put his flashers on, rolled down his window and began using a pistol shooting out of his car windows, striking patrons of the bar that were on the patio and that were in front of the bar.”
Davis said the suspect exited his vehicle and shot at individuals, but didn’t enter the bar.
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This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 800-273-TALK (8255).
Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, admitted to having an affair with a former staffer for the first time on Wednesday.
Gonzales made the confession during an appearance on a conservative talk radio show, just one day after he advanced to a runoff election in his congressional district’s GOP primary. The House Ethics Committee also launched an investigation into Gonzales on Wednesday.
“I made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,” he said on “The Joe Pags Show” Wednesday night. “Since then, I’ve reconciled with my wife, Angel. I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has, and my faith is as strong as ever.”
“When you make mistakes like this, it’s never easy. It humbles you,” he added.
Regina Santos-Aviles, a staffer for Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, died Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025, in Uvalde, Texas. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images | Regina Santos-Aviles Facebook)
The Ethics Committee is investigating whether Gonzales, a married father of six, engaged in sexual misconduct with a female member of his staff and whether he doled out special favors or privileges as a result.
Gonzales has said he has no plan to step down in the face of the accusations, saying last month that there are more details to be released regarding the situation.
“What you’ve seen is not all the facts,” Gonzales told reporters in late February.
REP TONY GONZALES HIT WITH HOUSE ETHICS PROBE OVER SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS
Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, has denied having anything to do with his former staffer’s death. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The three-term congressman argued at the time that he was being “blackmailed” in connection with the case. Controversy first arose after the San Antonio Express-News reported they obtained text messages in which the former staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, wrote to a colleague that she had an affair with the lawmaker.
Santos-Aviles later died after setting herself on fire.
Gonzales denied having anything to do with her death during his radio appearance.
NANCY MACE TO FORCE VOTE TARGETING FELLOW GOP LAWMAKER ACCUSED OF AFFAIR WITH STAFFER
Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, is interviewed by CQ-Roll Call. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“I hadn’t spoken with Miss Santos since June of 2024. She passed September of 2025… I had absolutely nothing to do with her tragic passing. And in fact, I was shocked just as much as everyone else,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales took to social media last month and accused Santos-Aviles’ husband of “blackmail,” sharing a partial screenshot of an email from the widower and claiming he was seeking money.
“I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED,” Gonzales wrote in a Feb. 19 post on X. “Disgusting to see people profit politically and financially off a tragic death.”
In the email posted by Gonzales, attorney Robert Barrera discussed a possible lawsuit against the lawmaker and a potential settlement with a nondisclosure agreement. The email says that the maximum recoverable amount is $300,000.
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Barrera denied he was trying to blackmail Gonzales.
“It is a desperate attempt to make him look again like a political victim,” Barrera told The Associated Press last month. “There’s no blackmail here. I mean, it’s just ridiculous allegations.”
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Nancy Guthrie’s abductor may have returned to the crime scene, left critical clues at tribute: expert
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TUCSON, Ariz. — As a growing memorial outside Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson-area home continues to draw visitors, new questions are emerging about whether investigators are monitoring the site.
Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, is believed to have been abducted from her home in the early hours of Feb. 1.
“They could [have eyes on the memorial], we’re just not seeing it,” Betsy Brantner Smith, spokesperson for the National Police Association and a retired police sergeant, tells Fox News Digital. “They could be keeping track of it, but we’re not seeing the cameras.”
Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her Tucson home on Feb. 1. (Getty Images)
Yellow flowers, handwritten notes, artwork and even an open letter addressed to the “kidnapper” have been left at the makeshift tribute in front of her home.
While the memorial grows, however, visible law enforcement presence has significantly dropped.
“Detectives are reviewing all viable leads in this case,” a spokesperson for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department told Fox News Digital. “We do not speak to specifics, as this is still an ongoing investigation.”
Authorities have not publicly identified a suspect, vehicle or any persons of interest.
MULTIPLE SUSPECTS ARE POSSIBLE IN NANCY GUTHRIE’S ABDUCTION
Haunting Nest doorbell camera video shows a masked man on Nancy Guthrie’s front steps around the time of her abduction. He is described as being of average height and build and was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack.
“In this type of situation where you have the potential for a suspect having done this because he or she is somehow obsessed with Savannah Guthrie or seeing Nancy featured on the ‘Today’ show multiple times… someone who is obsessed with notoriety, celebrity — there’s a lot of pathology involved in that,” Brantner Smith said.
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A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s office was seen outside of Nancy Guthrie’s home, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (Ty O’Neil/AP Photo; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“Potentially, that is the type of person that could come back to the memorial, look at the memorial, even take photos of the memorial and add to the memorial themselves.”
As to why there’s been an alleged lack of law enforcement presence monitoring the site, Brantner Smith pointed to one likely scenario.
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“It may be because they have solid suspects, and they just haven’t released that information to the public,” she said.
It’s not uncommon for an offender to return to the crime scene, she added.
A growing vigil in the morning light under cloudy skies is seen at Nancy Guthrie’s home on February 13, 2026, in Tucson, Arizona. (Ty O’Neil/AP Photo)
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“Sometimes the offender will come back to the scene of the crime. So, in that vein, they would come to the memorial, and they may have left their own note, their own flowers,” she said.
Often, it’s a mark of their arrogance, she told Fox News Digital.
“I am guessing that the suspect or suspects who did this are frankly taking great pride in the fact that so far they’ve got away with it,” she added. “Coming back can also be a way to bring back that rush that they had when they originally committed the crime.”
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Such behavior happens frequently in arson cases, she said.
Deputies examine a flyer taped to Nancy Guthrie’s mailbox on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. They were called to the scene after volunteer searchers and several streamers walked onto Guthrie’s property with a shovel. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
“But it’s also not untypical in a homicide case or, in this case, a missing person,” she continued. “We’ve got to look at the psychology of people who do this kind of stuff. They also may want to come back to see what kind of people are leaving notes and leaving flowers.”
For that reason, she said, investigators should be reading the notes to develop potential leads.
“They’re coming back to see the impact that they had on this neighborhood and on this family,” she said. “And the rest of us would view that as very sick, but law enforcement has to view that as a way to collect clues.”
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Savannah, her sister Annie, and brother-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, placed flowers at the growing tribute near the foot of Nancy’s driveway on Monday in a somber visit to the crime scene.
Annie Guthrie, her husband Tommaso Cioni, and Savannah Guthrie at their missing mother Nancy Guthrie’s home on Monday, March 2, in Tucson, Arizona. (Fox News)
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A combined reward for information that leads to Nancy’s recovery from the FBI, local authorities and the Guthrie family stands at over $1 million. It has not yet been claimed.
Savannah is asking anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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