Curtis’ brother speaks out against Roberson’s stay
Posted/updated on: October 20, 2025 at 4:44 am
TYLER – One family member of Nikki Curtis spoke with our news partner KETK’s Ashlyn Anderson on Thursday about why he is frustrated with Robert Roberson’s third stay of execution.
“This is my life every single day since I was five years old. Basically it’s been a repeat, repeat and repeat. My family has not been able to rest,” Nikki Curtis’ brother Matthew Bowman said.
Death row inmate, Robert Roberson received a last-minute stay of execution last week for the 2002 death of Nikki. His legal team said his conviction was based on junk science like Shaken Baby Syndrome, but Bowman disagrees.
“They haven’t showed any new evidence at all, it’s still the same stuff that we’re reviewing since 2016. It’s still blunt force trauma. It’s not shaken baby like everybody says. The autopsy makes that very clear,” Bowman said. Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sween said there is no evidence that Nikki was beaten to death. She added that those accusations are proven false by medical records and blood work. His team is pushing for a new trial.
The case has been brought back to a district court in Anderson County. If a new trial is granted, Bowman wants Roberson’s past brought back up.
“They’re worried about how he’s acting now. He wasn’t acting this way back then. He had friends. He had drug buddies,” Bowman said. “He was robbing people. He was doing stuff to his wife where he beat her one time. There are records of that. There’s just a lot that I don’t understand.”
As he was flipping through photos and funny memories of Nikki, Bowman said one photo of Nikki and Robert doesn’t display the truth.
“You know, my grandparents forced her to sit in his lap that day? So let’s talk about forced pictures. Pictures aren’t worth a million words. You know, sometimes all that stuff y’all show has been forced. My sister never wanted to get in that car that day either, but my grandparents were sick and thought he was supposed to be a awesome dad. For some reason she was always scared of him and now we know,” Bowman said.
Roberson’s legal team will try and prove his conviction was based off the Shaken Baby Syndrome hypothesis as his legal case continues.
