Christa Pike has spoken her first words since surviving a botched execution attempt in Tennessee.
Pike, 50, regained consciousness last Tuesday, six days after prison staff injected her with two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital on September 30, her scheduled execution date. Her legal team confirmed she is awake and able to speak following nearly a week on a ventilator, though she remains in critical condition and handcuffed to her hospital bed.
Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist advising her legal team, said that Pike knew her own name upon waking but became confused about the date. “She has some memories of being in the hospital but no memory, I believe, of the execution attempt,” he said.
That temporal disorientation stuck her in the month she was meant to die. When asked what date it was, Pike guessed September — the same month her execution had been scheduled.
Her lawyers have since offered a stark assessment of her physical state. “Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” the team said in a statement issued Tuesday.
The medical toll of the failed procedure has been severe. Pike’s lawyers say she was struck with at least seven needles during the attempted lethal injection, and she has suffered significant damage to her arms as a result. She spent nearly a week dependent on a ventilator before coming off it, according to Zivot.
Had the execution succeeded, Pike would have become the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than two centuries. Instead, the procedure’s failure has drawn fresh attention to a case that has lingered in the courts for three decades.
May Martinez, mother of Pike’s victim Colleen Slemmer, spoke affiliate WBIR after learning the inmate had woken. Martinez said she had harbored a feeling Pike would somehow survive the attempt.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Martinez said. “They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”
Martinez also indicated she does not believe the state will attempt to execute Pike a second time.
The case dates to 1995, when Pike was sentenced to death for the murder of her 19-year-old college classmate. Slemmer was tortured and bludgeoned, and Pike carved a pentagram into her body and took part of her skull as a souvenir. Pike subsequently spent 30 years on death row before her September 30 execution date arrived.
Pike remains hospitalized in critical condition as her legal team continues to monitor her recovery. The state has not announced whether it will seek to reschedule her execution.