Robert Roberson is again approaching execution in Texas in shaken baby case

LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) — Robert Roberson was calm and hopeful as he pondered his mortality and whether he could again avoid becoming the first person in the U.S. executed for a murder conviction tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

With days to go before his scheduled Oct. 16 execution, Roberson maintained his innocence in the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the east Texas city of Palestine. He is set to die by lethal injection nearly a year to the day after a group of Texas lawmakers, who say he is innocent, secured an extraordinary last-minute postponement as Roberson waited outside the death chamber in Huntsville.

Roberson said he was placing his hopes for another execution stay in the hands of his lawyers, his supporters and God.

“I’m not going to stress out and stuff because I know God has it, you know. He’s in control. No matter what, God’s in control, you know, and he does have the last say, you know,” Roberson, 58, told The Associated Press last week as he sat behind a glass partition in the visiting area of the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where Texas' male death row inmates are housed.

During an hourlong interview, Roberson said he thinks about his daughter every day and what kind of life she would have today.

Prosecutors at Roberson’s 2003 trial argued he hit his daughter and violently shook her, causing severe head trauma and that she died from injuries related to shaken baby syndrome. Roberson’s lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia. They say his conviction was based on flawed and now outdated scientific evidence.

The diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.

Roberson’s attorneys have argued his undiagnosed autism helped convict him as authorities and medical personnel felt he didn’t act like a concerned parent because his flat affect was seen as a sign of guilt.

Last year, Roberson was on the verge of being put to death when a flurry of last-minute legal maneuvering on the night of his scheduled execution, including an unprecedented intervention by a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, stayed his lethal injection. In July, a judge set the new execution date, Roberson's third.

During his interview with the AP, Roberson often would not keep eye contact and would repeat words or phrases — behaviors that experts say are associated with autism.

“They assumed (guilt) because of the way I was acting, you know. And I didn’t know I was autistic, you know, until years and years later, you know,” said Roberson, who wasn’t diagnosed with autism until 2018.

Roberson’s supporters and his legal team are again holding rallies and asking state and federal appeals courts and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to halt his execution. His supporters include both liberal and ultraconservative lawmakers, Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason, bestselling author John Grisham and Brian Wharton, the former police detective who helped put together the case against him.

“The whole world is watching. Texas, do not kill this innocent man,” Wharton said during a rally Saturday outside the Texas Capitol in Austin.

On Wednesday afternoon a bipartisan group of four lawmakers met with Roberson for an hour at the Polunsky Unit. State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican, said he believes Roberson deserves a new trial.

“Doing that strengthens the system and will save what I believe is an innocent life in Robert Robertson,” Leach told reporters outside. “What a blessing it was to just spend an hour with him. And I’m hopeful and prayerful that the right thing will happen between now and next Thursday.”

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as some medical experts and other family members of Nikki, maintain the girl died because of child abuse and that Roberson had a history of hitting his daughter.

“It’s been a long time coming. … In my opinion he did it, 100%,” Matthew Bowman, Nikki's half brother, told reporters in July. Bowman declined to speak with the AP.

Abbott's office did not immediately reply to emails seeking comment. Abbott has the power to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve.

Roberson said he never hurt his daughter and had been working to turn his life around and take care of Nikki after spending time in prison for burglary and theft by check.

“I never shook her or hit her,” Roberson said, adding he never disciplined his daughter “because she was so tiny.”

Shaken baby syndrome has come under scrutiny in recent years as some lawyers and medical experts have argued the diagnosis has wrongly sent people to prison. Prosecutors and medical societies say it remains valid.

“It’s no longer a mystery what happened to Nikki. It was not shaking. It was her chronic, serious health conditions," Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s lawyers, said at Saturday’s rally. "A crime didn’t occur.”

But in a Sept. 26 op-ed in The Dallas Morning News, three pediatricians, including two with the Yale School of Medicine, said they reviewed the case and “are convinced that Nikki was a victim of child abuse.”

Roberson was arrested after he took Nikki to a hospital when she became unresponsive following a fall off their bed. He said he had never heard of shaken baby syndrome.

“It was bad enough losing my little girl. And then when they accused me of it, I couldn’t believe it,” Roberson said.

In a press release issued after Roberson’s execution was delayed last year as well as in recent court filings, Paxton’s office has stressed that “this was no mere shaken baby case but involved a child who was beaten and received multiple blows to the head.” Paxton’s office said the jury “did not convict Roberson on the basis of ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome.’”

Yet one of the jurors who convicted Roberson, Terre Compton, told lawmakers last year that, “everything that was presented to us was all about shaken baby syndrome. That is what our decision was based on.”

Grisham, who is writing a book about the case, said Roberson's trial “was grossly unfair” because his autism contributed to people believing he was guilty and his defense lawyers told jurors it was a case of shaken baby syndrome.

Roberson said he remains optimistic he will one day get a chance to prove his innocence with a new trial.

“I’m not scared to die, but I’m not ready to die, you know. I would like to believe God has more for me to do and stuff, you know,” Roberson said.

Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

Robert Roberson waits to be interviewed in a locked visitation cell at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. Roberson, who has maintained his innocence on death row for more than 20 years, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 16, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

Robert Roberson is led to a locked visitation cell for an interview with The Associated Press at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

Robert Roberson speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

The Allan B. Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, Texas, is seen on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

Robert Roberson speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

Robert Roberson waits to be interviewed in a locked visitation cell at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. Roberson, who has maintained his innocence on death row for more than 20 years, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 16, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. (AP Photo/Annie Mulligan)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An astronaut in need of doctors' care departed the International Space Station with three crewmates on Wednesday in NASA's first medical evacuation.

The four returning astronauts — from the U.S., Russia and Japan — are aiming for an early Thursday morning splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego with SpaceX. The decision cuts short their mission by over a month.

“Our timing of this departure is unexpected,” NASA astronaut Zena Cardman said before the return trip, “but what was not surprising to me was how well this crew came together as a family to help each other and just take care of each other.”

Officials refused to identify the astronaut who needed care last week and would not divulge the health concerns.

The ailing astronaut is “stable, safe and well cared for,” outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke said earlier this week via social media. “This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists."

Launched in August, Cardman, Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov should have remained on the space station until late February. But on Jan. 7, NASA abruptly canceled the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke and later announced the crew’s early return. Officials said the health problem was unrelated to spacewalk preparations or other station operations, but offered no other details, citing medical privacy. They stressed it was not an emergency situation.

NASA said it would stick to the same entry and splashdown procedures at flight’s end, with the usual assortment of medical experts aboard the recovery ship in the Pacific. It was another middle-of-the-night crew return for SpaceX, coming less than 11 hours after undocking from the space station. NASA said it was not yet known how quickly all four would be flown from California to Houston, home to Johnson Space Center and the base for astronauts.

One U.S. and two Russian astronauts remain aboard the orbiting lab, just 1 1/2 months into an eight-month mission that began with a Soyuz rocket liftoff from Kazakhstan. NASA and SpaceX are working to move up the launch of a fresh four-person crew from Florida, currently targeted for mid-February.

Computer modeling predicted a medical evacuation from the space station every three years, but NASA hasn't had one in its 65 years of human spaceflight. The Russians have not been as fortunate. In 1985, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin came down with a serious infection or related illness aboard his country’s Salyut 7 space station, prompting an early return. A few other Soviet cosmonauts encountered less serious health issues that shortened their flights.

It was the first spaceflight for Cardman, a 38, biologist and polar explorer who missed out on spacewalking, as well as Platonov, 39, a former fighter pilot with the Russian air force who had to wait a few extra years to get to space because of an undisclosed health issue. Cardman should have launched last year but was bumped to make room on the way down for NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were stuck nearly a year at the space station because of Boeing’s capsule problems.

Fincke, 58, a retired Air Force colonel, and Yui, 55, a retired fighter pilot with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, were repeat space fliers. Finke has spent 1 1/2 years in orbit over four missions and conducted nine spacewalks on previous flights, making him one of NASA’s top performers. Last week, Yui celebrated his 300th day in space over two station stays, sharing stunning views of Earth, including Japan’s Mount Fuji and breathtaking auroras.

“I want to burn it firmly into my eyes, and even more so, into my heart,” Yui said on the social platform X. “Soon, I too will become one of those small lights on the ground.”

NASA officials had said it was riskier to leave the astronaut in space without proper medical attention for another month than to temporarily reduce the size of the space station crew by more than half. Until SpaceX delivers another crew, NASA said it will have to stand down from any routine or even emergency spacewalks, a two-person job requiring backup help from crew inside the orbiting complex.

The medical evacuation was the first major decision by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman. The billionaire founder of a payment processing company and two-time space flier assumed the agency’s top job in December.

“The health and the well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority,” Isaacman said in announcing the decision last week.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This screengrab from video provided by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Dragon departing from the International Space Station shortly after undocking with four NASA Crew-11 members inside on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)

This photo provided by NASA shows clockwise from bottom left are, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui gathering for a crew portrait wearing their Dragon pressure suits during a suit verification check inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (NASA via AP)