The Robert Roberson murder case: What to know about the evidence

People who believe Roberson is guilty have also claimed he sexually abused Nikki.

But only one nurse made that allegation: Andrea Sims, who said at trial that she was a certified sexual assault examiner before later admitting on cross-examination that she was not, in fact, certified.

Attorneys for Roberson and Brian Wharton, the lead investigator on the case, said Sims examined Nikki for signs of sexual abuse without being asked by law enforcement.

Sims testified that she saw three anal tears that prompted her to end sexual abuse. The prosecutor then asked him to make a statement to the jury about pedophiles and anal sex.

Squires, the Dallas pediatrician, dismissed Sims’ conclusion, saying he noticed a tear and thought it was typical for a young child.

Then, even after dropping the charge as a reason for capital punishment, the prosecutor discussed the sexual abuse in his closing statement to the jury.

Roberson’s attorneys condemned the sexual abuse allegation as baseless and prejudicial to Roberson’s trial, noting that the state offered no evidence beyond Sims’ testimony. They added that Nikki had been battling diarrhea in the week leading up to her death.

“In my opinion, this is recklessly and dangerously being thrown around the internet right now when Roberson sexually abused and did other things to Nikki,” Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, said on Oct. 21.

He asked Salzman, who supported Roberson’s appeals, if “there was ever a glimmer of substantiated evidence to support that claim.”

“Absolutely not,” Salzman said.

In his Oct. 23 release, Paxton also detailed a jailhouse informant’s claim that Roberson admitted to molesting Nikki — a report that the prosecution didn’t even raise during the trial.

“By including this information, (the attorney general’s office) repeated a lie with, at best, a total disregard for the truth,” the lawmakers wrote in their rebuttal. “The ‘prison species’ here spun a story so outrageously contrary to the evidence that prosecutors didn’t use it at trial.”