Christa Pike’s aunt says she believes divine intervention allowed her niece to become the first person in the United States known to survive a lethal injection, speaking in the family’s first interview since the convicted killer regained consciousness in a hospital.
Carrie Ross, who helped raise the 50-year-old Pike and says she loves her “like a daughter,” argued that Pike’s life should now be spared because God appeared to reject the execution.
“When God puts his hand on someone, God is in control,” Ross told the Daily Mail. “Not the Department of Correction, not us, but God.”
Ross said she and other members of the family have not been able to talk with Pike since the Tennessee death row inmate emerged from a coma on Tuesday.
Pike was hospitalized in critical condition after surviving a failed execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Sept. 30.
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According to her attorneys, Pike is unable to eat and is suffering from pneumonia and a blood clot in her arms. She was given two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital during the botched procedure.
“It’s been up, down, up, down. I have cried more tears in the last week than I’ve cried in my whole life,” Ross said.
“This whole week has been a blur.”
Pike received a death sentence for the brutal torture and murder of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer. The killing took place in January 1995, when Pike was 18, during what prosecutors described as a jealous rage.
Following the failed execution, Ross is calling for Pike’s sentence to be commuted. She said attempting to execute her niece again would amount to torture after the physical ordeal she has already endured.
“That would be horrible. Torture. Don’t do that to a human,” Ross said. “She has completed her execution. She went willingly.”