Christa Pike has spoken publicly for the first time since her botched execution on Sept. 30.
“I walked into the execution chamber at Riverbend men’s prison prepared to die,” Pike said in an Oct. 30 statement dictated to her legal team and provided to Oxygen. “I had made my peace. I had told the people who loved me, supported me and stood by me through the years I was grateful for them. I had also told the people in the room and who were there to witness my execution that I was leaving them in loving kindness.”
Pike recounted the severe pain she experienced after executioners reportedly struggled to insert an IV. Her attorneys believe the drugs may have entered the tissue surrounding the vein rather than her bloodstream when they were eventually administered.
“Several days later I woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain,” said Pike, who is now held at Tennessee’s Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. “There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Along with her physical suffering, Pike is grappling with the intense emotions of surviving the fate she had expected to meet.
“I had not contemplated life beyond that night, and I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position,” said Pike, who was convicted in 1995 of murdering Colleen Slemmer. “I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured.”
She added, “I am recovering, and I know that I am getting stronger. But healing is not the same as being okay.”
The 50-year-old also described what life has been like since the failed execution.
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“Since that night, I have been largely isolated in the prison’s medical ward, away from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me,” she said. “That isolation brings its own kind of pain. I spent 28 years in solitary confinement and much of what I am experiencing today is a repeat of that condition.”
Pike’s next steps remain unclear. Her attorneys have asked Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison, but Lee has said he believes she could face another execution unless a court rules otherwise.
“I am searching for meaning in what happened to me,” Pike said. “One thing that has given me strength is the extraordinary love and support I have received from people around the world. I am overwhelmed by the kindness and prayers of people I have known for years and complete strangers who have never met me.”
“To know that so many people care about me, that they see me as a human being whose life matters, is something I cannot fully put into words,” she continued. “It is humbling, and it has touched me more deeply than I can explain.”
Pike expressed gratitude to the first responders and hospital staff, saying they “treated me with compassion, dignity and respect.” She also thanked her attorneys, who she said “refused to give up on me.”
She also acknowledged the many supporters who have stood by her, including “complete strangers who have never met me.”
“I don’t know why I survived that night,” Pike concluded. “I don’t know what comes next. Some days, finding hope is harder than others. For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time. And I am holding on to the love and kindness of so many people who have reminded me that I am not alone.”