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Hello, I'm Lester Holt from Dateline NBC. Here's a special preview of my new podcast, The Last Appeal.
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Good morning to you, Mr. Holt. How are you? I'm blessed, I'm blessed. I'm sitting in a plastic chair inside the notorious Polunsky unit
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in West Livingston, Texas, Death Row. Across from me, a man named Robert Robertson.
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We got a lot to talk about. Yes, sir. He's a big guy, more than six feet, wearing a white prison jumpsuit.
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We're so close, I could shake his hand, if not for the pain of plexiglass between us.
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On October 16th, Robert is scheduled to die by lethal injection. How are you preparing for your own death, your own execution?
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I'm at peace if it happens, but I'm not ready because I don't think I should be executed when I'm innocent.
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In 2003 a jury convicted Robert of murdering his two daughter Nikki Prosecutors say the evidence is overwhelming Mr Robertson took the life of his daughter And I just remember that cold face and I looked
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and that poor little girl was just, she was dead. Some in Nikki's family believe Robert's date with
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death is long overdue. This is his third execution date. It's time. It's no more waiting.
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But a growing army is rallying behind Robert. They believe he is innocent. I almost cannot believe what I'm reading.
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They argue his case urgently needs another look. Now, before it's too late. Let's take all this evidence, go back to the courtroom, go back to a jury, and let them decide.
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As the days tick down to Robert's execution, I set off to East Texas. I've never seen a picture of her like this. Beautiful little girl.
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I'm on the hunt for answers about what happened to Nikki. all those years ago, learning critical information the jury never got to hear.
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We're just fact-checking on a document that was discovered here. Finding details that have never been reported.
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Have you done interviews on this topic before? No, this is the very first. Is the state about to put an innocent man to death?
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I am terrified that that is what we are racing towards It's September 2025, one month before Robert Roberson is scheduled to be executed.
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I'm in Palestine, Texas, once a busy railroad hub. Today, downtown looks more like an empty movie set.
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It's the town where two-year-old Nikki was taken to the hospital. On the morning of January 31st, 2002, a man walked in pushing a woman in a wheelchair.
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Resting on her lap was Nikki. She was unconscious, barely breathing. A nurse named Kelly Garganis was the first to see Nikki that morning.
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Has she talked before anybody? No. I'm with producer Dan Slepian. We wanted to speak with Kelly, so we stopped by her house.
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Hello. Hello. Hello, hi. Hi. Are you Kelly? Uh-huh. Hi I Lester Holt from NBC News Yes sir I with my colleagues here I know you not like me You look just like Lester We trying to contact you about a story we working on around the Robert Robertson case
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Kelly is wearing pink scrubs. She invites us in and agrees to talk to me about that morning 23 years ago.
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So you've been working all day? Yes, sir. At the same hospital? At the same hospital, been there 28 years.
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Back when all this was happening, you were an ER nurse? Yes, sir. Is the pediatric part of that job emotionally hard?
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Can be, yes. Can be very emotionally. And like Mickey, the little girl, to this day, I'll never forget that day.
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A gentleman walks through the door, not the ambulance bay, but the main door, and there was a lady that was in a wheelchair,
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and I could tell she was in a hospital gown. And there was something on her lap.
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and I saw that there was a jacket so I took the jacket off and there was a baby in her lap
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we went in the trauma room when we started the head to toe assessment and we were like
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something else is going on here thank you for listening search for The Last Appeal
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to hear the full episode now