Christa Pike regains consciousness after failed Tennessee execution
Convicted killer Christa Pike, who survived an attempt to execute her by lethal injection in Tennessee, has regained consciousness and is speaking. Her lawyers say her prognosis is unclear and a long recovery is expected.
Christa Pike, a convicted murderer who survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her by lethal injection last week, has regained consciousness and is able to speak, her public defenders said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to the lawyers, the 50-year-old has severe injuries to her arms from the insertion of intravenous lines. She remains in hospital, still handcuffed and shackled to her bed. Her prognosis is unclear, but her attorneys expect at least a long recovery. A hearing in her case is set for Wednesday in Davidson County Chancery Court.
The botched procedure
The attempt took place on the night of September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. It would have been the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in roughly two centuries. Witnesses described about two and a half hours of disarray as corrections staff struggled to deliver two doses of pentobarbital intravenously. Pike was heard gasping, crying and breathing loudly, and at one point said her arm felt like it was about to burst open.
Her lawyers told the court that both arms were left swollen, burned and blistered, apparently because the caustic drug seeped into surrounding tissue. They also accuse officials of ignoring earlier warnings from her doctors that her small veins and a blood disorder, thrombocytosis, would make placing IV lines difficult. By the time her lawyers filed an emergency motion, prison staff had already stopped and called an ambulance, court records show.
Aftermath
Governor Bill Lee rejected a clemency petition two days before the scheduled execution; it had pointed to Pike's childhood trauma. After the incident he suspended scheduled executions for the rest of the year and ordered a third-party review. Corrections commissioner Frank Strada is resigning. The department had initially said it followed every step of the state's protocol.
Pike is the first person in the United States known to have survived after execution drugs were administered. Opponents of the death penalty say the case shows the inherent barbarity of executions.
The crime
In January 1995, Pike, then 18, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and a third person lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area of the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville and killed her. Pike and Shipp confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder. Pike received a death sentence, while Shipp was given life with the possibility of parole. Co-defendant Shadolla Peterson testified for the prosecution and received probation.
