Criminal Justice

Execution for Tex. Woman in Baby Case?

  •  
  •  
  •  
  • Print

An unusual execution of a woman may be about to take place in Texas. If so, it would be only the 12th in the entire country since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Well over 1,000 men have been executed during that time.

Cathy Lynn Henderson, now 50, is seeking a last-minute opportunity to present expert testimony about the head injuries suffered by a three-month-old baby left in her care. If that effort doesn’t succeed, she is scheduled to be executed on June 13. The baby’s 1994 death was an accident, she says, not intentional, after she fell while swinging him around and dropped him on a concrete floor in a garage that had been converted to a playroom, reports CNN.

Henderson admittedly panicked at that point, concealing the body and fleeing the area. “I think I was in shock, disbelief. I just didn’t know what I was doing. That baby was dead. I didn’t want to deal with that. There was too much sorrow. It hurt, it hurt,” she says, tearing up. “When I look back at it, it does kind of look like I was guilty, doesn’t it?”

Give us feedback, share a story tip or update, or report an error.