Christa Pike’s lawyers say she is now walking but remains “foggy” after surviving Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection.
Her attorney Stephen Ferrell, 48, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Tuesday that the 49-year-old death row inmate took her first steps around her hospital room that day. Ferrell had not spoken to Pike directly, but relayed what medical staff and others close to her had described.
“What’s been described to me is that physically there’s quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured and she’s not able to use them very much,” he said.
Ferrell added that the progress was limited: “She is up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far.”
Her arms remain swollen and barely functioning, Ferrell noted at a press conference Wednesday. He said the team believes psychological support is now “clearly necessary” for Pike as she processes the ordeal.
Her mental state presents a mixed picture, according to her legal team. Ferrell said: “I think it’s kind of good and bad. Good that she is fairly with it, but she’s also somewhat foggy. She can lose her train of thought really easily and forgets where she’s going.”
The long-term prognosis remains uncertain. Ferrell said he assumes Pike’s condition “will keep improving, but there could be some permanent damage. We don’t know that yet.”
The recovery follows a harrowing week for Pike’s family. Her aunt Carrie Ross said on Monday that she had been informed Pike was brain dead and would be removed from life support at 1 p.m. That day. Ross said: “They were going to let her go — let her die — at 1 o’clock.”
Ross described the emotional whiplash to the outlet: “It’s been up, down, up, down. I have cried more tears in the last week than I’ve cried in my whole life.”
Pike regained consciousness Tuesday, nearly a week after two doses of pentobarbital failed to kill her. Her lead attorney Randy Spivey acknowledged at Wednesday’s press conference that the turnaround defies medical explanation: “I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning, but what we do know is Christa has a long road to recovery.”
The failed execution has triggered multiple official responses. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has paused all state executions until next year pending investigation. At a court hearing Monday, Judge I’Ashea Myles ordered that “anything that was in the actual room needs to be preserved and maintained” and directed the state to take “special care” against deleting or misplacing evidence.
Pike’s lawyers are now petitioning Governor Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole. She was convicted of the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville, in a killing that prosecutors said involved a box cutter, a meat cleaver and a piece of asphalt. Pike, then 18, and an accomplice lured Slemmer to a remote spot, where they beat and stabbed her over approximately 30 minutes before Pike crushed her skull with the asphalt. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a souvenir, which investigators later found in her possession.
Pike’s legal team continues to monitor her condition while pressing her commutation request.