Christa Pike has survived two brushes with death, but the convicted killer may be headed back to Tennessee’s execution chamber.
“She is still incarcerated under the laws of the state of Tennessee,” Gov. Bill Lee told reporters Oct. 28. “And I suspect her sentence will be the same as it was before, unless determined otherwise by the courts.”
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction told Oxygen that Pike “does remain on death row. We have not received any orders from the court for a new date.”
Pike has spent three decades in prison for the killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Her execution was scheduled for Sept. 30, but after two doses of pentobarbital were administered, she began gasping, snoring and making choking sounds before being hospitalized in critical condition.
Her attorneys filed two emergency motions seeking to halt the execution, secure life-saving medical care for Pike and preserve evidence from the failed procedure. Gov. Lee also ordered an investigation into what went wrong.
Pike’s lawyers have suggested that problems with her IV caused the drugs to leak into surrounding tissue instead of entering her bloodstream properly.
“We may never know,” attorney Stephen Ferrell told CNN, “what sort of torture she endured during that process.”
Pike’s attorneys initially feared she was brain dead. But they later told CNN that she made a “medically unprecedented” recovery, eventually speaking and walking.
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She was released from the hospital by Oct. 10 and returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been incarcerated for years.
Why Was Christa Pike on Death Row?
On Jan. 12, 1995, Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, carried out the fatal attack on Slemmer. Pike said the teenager was competing for Shipp’s attention.
Shipp carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, while Pike kept a piece of the victim’s skull that she later referred to as a “souvenir.”
Slemmer’s body had been beaten so severely that a University of Tennessee employee who found her remains initially thought they belonged to an animal.
Pike was convicted the following year of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and received a death sentence. Shipp was convicted on the same charges and sentenced to life in prison.
No replacement execution date has been set. Legal experts have said another attempt would enter uncharted territory.
Representatives for Pike and Gov. Bill Lee did not immediately respond to Oxygen’s requests for comment.