A Texas babysitter facing execution for killing an infant in her care says new scientific evidence supports her claim that she accidentally dropped the child and did not intentionally kill him, as prosecutors alleged in her trial.

Moreover, the medical examiner who helped send Cathy Lynn Henderson to death row for killing 3-month-old Brandon Baugh has said that, in light of the new evidence, he no longer stands by his original opinion that the child's death resulted from an intentional act on Henderson's part.

With less than three weeks before her scheduled execution, lawyers for Henderson filed an application last week asking that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals review Henderson's case based on new research using biomechanics in analyzing infant head injuries.

In the application, which also asks for a stay of her June 13 execution, her lawyers claim that new research in the field of infant head trauma shows that Brandon could have died from an accidental fall and not necessarily at Henderson's "murderous" hands.

Her lawyers argue that advancements in modern science have "eclipsed" the body of knowledge that was available to medical witnesses in Henderson's capital murder trial, and that jurors might not have convicted her if they had knowledge of the scientific evidence that now exists.

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Since her arrest nearly 13 years ago for Brandon's murder, Henderson has maintained that the infant accidentally fell from her arms after she stepped on a toy while spinning him around. In a panic, Henderson claims, she fled her home with Brandon's body and buried him in a cardboard box before fleeing the state for Kansas City, Miss., where she was arrested one week later.

A Travis County jury convicted Henderson and sentenced her to death in 1995, based largely on the testimony of retired Travis County chief medical examiner Roberto Bayardo, who told jurors that Brandon sustained blunt-force trauma to the back of his head inconsistent with an accidental death.

Bayardo, who retired in 2006, testified in Henderson's trial that Brandon's injuries were too severe to have resulted from a "short-distance fall" out of Henderson's arms. The injuries Brandon sustained were consistent with force generated by falling from a two-story building or a car running over his head, Bayardo theorized.

After reading reports from forensic experts retained by Henderson's lawyers, Bayardo wrote in an affidavit submitted to the court that he was unable to stand by the opinion he offered during trial testimony.

"Had the new scientific information been available to me in 1995, I would not have been able to testify the way I did about the degree of force needed to cause Brandon Baugh's head injury," Bayardo wrote in an affidavit signed May 19. "I cannot determine with a reasonable degree of medical certainty whether Brandon Baugh's injuries resulted from an intentional act or an accidental fall."