Christa Pike remains unconscious in a guarded hospital room after surviving a botched execution in Tennessee, and her attorney says she may never fully recover.
Pike was sentenced to death in Tennessee in 1996, when she was 20, for the torture and murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, the previous year.
After spending 30 years on death row, Pike was scheduled to be executed on September 30 following repeated delays.
According to witnesses and court filings, medical staff used at least seven needles while attempting to administer two lethal doses of pentobarbital over roughly two hours. Pike is now 50.
However, the execution did not kill her. Her lawyers said she could be heard crying, whimpering and breathing heavily throughout the procedure.
Media witnesses were escorted from the viewing chamber at 8.53pm, just over two hours after entering at 6.41pm. Behind the closed curtains, Pike could reportedly be heard snoring loudly.
Pike was taken to hospital unconscious, with swollen and blistered arms after the drugs were administered. She was intubated and placed on a ventilator, and her lawyers said she was still alive and unconscious on Sunday.
One of her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that Pike’s hospital room “is guarded” and that she “may not fully recover.”
Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during her September 30 execution in Tennessee. She remains unconscious in a guarded hospital room and may never recover.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 at the age of 20. She is pictured crying during her sentencing hearing.
Pike’s victim, classmate Colleen Slemmer, is pictured as a child. Pike tortured Slemmer for up to an hour before killing her.
Ferrell said that, to his knowledge, Pike has not regained consciousness or spoken since the failed execution.
The attorney also said he had not been permitted to enter Pike’s hospital room. “We don’t really know the prognosis yet and may not know for several more days,” he said.
Ferrell added that Tennessee had not announced whether it intended to make another attempt to execute Pike.
During the attempted execution, Pike reportedly said: “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.” At another point, she asked: “Does this happen like that?”
The botched execution quickly became a national scandal and drew a reaction from President Donald Trump. The following day, he said: “How does that happen? Should be easy to do. It shouldn’t be very difficult.”
The incident also prompted Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada to announce his resignation. He is expected to leave the top position later this month.
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Strada described serving as commissioner as a “great honor” and said he still “believes the Department carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”
“Even so, stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward,” he said.
Pike’s botched execution became a national scandal and drew criticism from President Trump, who said: “It shouldn’t be very difficult.”
The scandal also led Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada to announce that he is resigning and will step down later this month
Tennessee’s execution protocol does not outline what should be done if an inmate survives two lethal injection doses. The execution chamber where Pike was supposed to die is pictured
Pike’s attorneys have argued that the Department of Correction failed their client.
The lawyers said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.
‘Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms Pike’s body,’ the lawyers wrote in a court filing.
They wrote that instead of ‘remedying this failure,’ they prepared and administered a backup set of pentobarbital syringes.
Her lawyers are seeking to have all of the evidence from her botched execution preserved so they can ensure accountability and protect her legal rights.
The court filing emphasized that Pike previously filed an appeal claiming her execution would result in cruel and unusual punishment because of her individual physical characteristics, including thrombocytosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and small veins.
Tennessee’s execution protocol calls for a secondary set of drug syringes to be administered ‘if the inmate is not deceased’ after the first set. It does not spell out what happens if the subject is alive after the second set.
Governor Bill Lee has halted any additional executions for the year and ordered ‘a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.’
Pike’s attorneys said that the execution team failed to place the IVs into her veins, causing the lethal injection to enter her body rather than her bloodstream
Pike (pictured in 1996) carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest and took a piece of her caved-in skull after bludgeoning the young woman to death with a piece of asphalt
At the age of 18, Pike lured Colleen Slemmer to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee’s campus in January 1995 and, alongside her boyfriend and a friend, tortured Slemmer for up to an hour.
Slemmer was stabbed more than 100 times with a box cutter before Pike bludgeoned her to death with a piece of asphalt, carved a pentagram into her chest and took a piece of her caved-in skull as a sick souvenir.