Christa Pike’s lawyers say the Tennessee death row inmate remains in critical condition after surviving two lethal injection attempts.
Pike, 50, underwent two rounds of pentobarbital on Wednesday evening before prison officials halted the execution and rushed her to a hospital for what her attorneys describe as life-saving medical care. Her lawyer Randy Spivey addressed reporters at a news conference on Thursday with limited information about her current state.
“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,” Spivey said. “But we do know that that she is alive right now.”
WPLN reporter Catherine Sweeney, who witnessed the botched procedure, described Pike’s final moments before officials called it off. Sweeney said Pike was still conscious after both rounds of drugs had been administered.
“They went through two rounds, and she was still breathing at the end, it was very ragged, she lifted her head up and was looking around at one point,” Sweeney said. “She said there was a spot that was burning and hurting and asked if that was normal. None of that was normal.”
Before the execution began, Pike had told those present that she accepted her fate. “I’m at peace, and I’m ready to go,” she stated. She also shared messages of love with those gathered, though she later reported severe physical discomfort as the drugs failed to work as intended.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee addressed the extraordinary situation on Thursday, promising a full review of what went wrong. “There are a lot of questions,” he said. “The people of our state deserve to have those questions answered, and that’s what this investigation is for,” He added that the probe “will be thorough” and cautioned that “it’s going to take time.”
The failed execution marked what would have been the first time Tennessee put a woman to death in two centuries.
Pike was 18 when she and two accomplices lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into the woods in Knoxville in 1995. According to Tennessee Supreme Court documents, Pike had told fellow student Kim Iloilo that she intended to kill Slemmer because she “had just felt mean that day.” The group beat, tortured, and killed Slemmer, with Pike later bringing a piece of the victim’s skull back as a souvenir. Pike was reportedly “dancing in a circle, smiling, and singing ‘la, la, la'” while describing the murder to Iloilo, and the next morning told her the skull fragment was in her pocket as she ate breakfast. A judge called the killing “horrific” and “brutal.” Pike received her death sentence at age 20, a year after the murder.
Pike’s legal team had argued her sentence was disproportionate, citing severe childhood trauma as mitigating context for her actions.