Christa Pike remains hospitalized, unconscious and on a ventilator, after a failed execution left her with severe burns to both arms, according to her attorneys.
Her lawyers filed an emergency motion Friday asking a court to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all evidence connected to the botched execution.
Pike, 50, was reportedly stuck with at least seven needles Wednesday as medical personnel tried to administer two lethal doses of pentobarbital, court documents say.
“At one point, Ms Pike herself offered guidance on where the IV team could attempt access; one needle was bent at a 90-degree angle when it was removed,” her lawyers wrote.
According to the filing, staff administered two rounds of syringes containing the execution drug. Pike could reportedly be heard crying, whimpering and breathing heavily throughout the attempt.
During the procedure, Pike said, “my arm feels like it’s about to burst open.” At another point, she asked, “does this happen like that?”
By Thursday night, she remained critically ill at a hospital in the Nashville area, where she was “intubated, on a ventilator, and remains unconscious,” her attorneys said.
Pike had spent 30 years on death row after being convicted of the 1995 murder of her Knoxville Jobs Corp classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Christa Pike remains hospitalized, unconscious and on a ventilator, with severe burns to her arms following her botched execution, her attorneys say.
Pike was taken to a hospital after receiving two rounds of the lethal drug and being heard crying, whimpering and breathing heavily during the procedure.
Her lawyers said both arms were swollen, burned and blistered when she arrived at the hospital. They compared the drug’s effect to bleach or Drano, the chemical drain cleaner used to clear clogged household pipes.
Pike’s attorneys believe complications involving the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to enter her body rather than flow into 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.
Rather than correcting the problem, they alleged, the execution team prepared and administered a second set of pentobarbital syringes.
Pike’s attorneys want all evidence from the failed execution preserved so they can pursue accountability and protect her legal rights.
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“We are working closely with those closest to Christa to respect her wishes, safeguard her privacy and protect her rights as a patient during this extraordinarily difficult time,” said Luke Ihnen, an attorney with Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee.
“We ask that the public and the media respect that privacy as well.”
The filing also noted that Pike had previously appealed her execution, arguing it would constitute cruel and unusual punishment because of her medical and physical characteristics, including thrombocytosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and small veins.
Pike spent 30 years on death row after her conviction in the 1995 murder of her Knoxville Jobs Corp classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
During the execution attempt, Pike said, “my arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” and later asked, “does this happen like that?”
Her lawyers emphasized that Pike previously filed an appeal claiming her execution would result in cruel and unusual punishment
‘Her concerns were called ‘speculation’; they were laughed off, scoffed at, and dismissed,’ the lawyers wrote.
‘In the words of one media witness: We have a lot of questions, and the Department of Correction has a lot of answers that it needs to provide to the public about what happened here. We agree.’
Pike received the death sentence in 1996 and would have been the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.
Instead, the case marks the second botched execution in Tennessee this year, and Governor Bill Lee halted any additional executions for the year and ordered ‘a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.’
The state’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.
Tennessee announced in 2024 that it was switching from a three-drug series for lethal injections to the single drug pentobarbital.
Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, stabbed and beat Slemmer to death on the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural campus.
The two carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, and Pike took a piece of her skull as a souvenir, according to investigators.
Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the killing, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole due to his age.
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