Christa Pike, Tennessee’s first woman scheduled to be executed in more than two centuries, remained alive after receiving two syringes of lethal-injection drugs as her attorneys sought an emergency stay.
Pike, 50, was secured to a gurney inside Tennessee’s death chamber in Nashville shortly before 7:30 p.m. CDT. The US Supreme Court had rejected her request to halt the execution about an hour earlier, according to The Tennessean.
Witnesses who gathered to observe the historic execution said Pike was still speaking in complete sentences as officials prepared to administer the death penalty.
WKRN reporter Tori Gessner recalled Pike saying, “My arm feels like it’s about to bust. One spot is really throbbing.”
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After Pike was given two syringes containing pentobarbital, she did not appear to die. Her attorneys then urgently petitioned the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee for another stay.
“Ms. Pike has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring,” her attorneys wrote in the emergency filing.
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