Convicted murderer Christa Pike remains in a guarded hospital room after surviving a botched execution, and her attorney says she may never fully recover.
Tennessee sentenced Pike to death in 1996, when she was 20, for the brutal torture and murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, the year before.
Pike spent 30 years on death row as her execution was repeatedly postponed. It was eventually scheduled for September 30.
Now 50, Pike was stuck with at least seven needles as medical workers tried to administer two lethal doses of pentobarbital over roughly two hours, according to witnesses and court documents.
However, Pike survived the procedure. Her lawyers said witnesses could hear her crying, whimpering and breathing heavily during the attempted execution.
When members of the media were escorted from the viewing chamber at 8.53pm—just over two hours after entering at 6.41pm—they could reportedly hear Pike snoring behind the closed curtains.
Pike was taken unconscious to hospital with swollen, blistered arms, which lawyers attributed to the drug. Doctors intubated her and placed her on a ventilator. As of Sunday, she remained alive but unconscious, according to her legal team.
Stephen Ferrell, one of Pike’s attorneys, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that her hospital room “is guarded” and that she “may not fully recover.”
Pike was sentenced to death at age 20 in 1996. She is pictured crying during her sentencing hearing.
Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during her September 30 execution in Tennessee. She remains unconscious in a guarded hospital room and may never recover.
“I think one of the main things that will leave this up in the air for a while is the fact that we don’t know what the prognosis is, as in the long-term prognosis. If she recovers, she may not fully recover,” Ferrell said.
Ferrell said he understood that Pike had not regained consciousness or spoken since the failed execution.
The attorney also said he had not been permitted to enter Pike’s hospital room. “We don’t really know the prognosis yet and may not know for several more days,” he said.
Ferrell said Tennessee had not announced whether the state intended to make another attempt to execute Pike.
He said he had asked the governor to commute Pike’s death sentence to life in prison, citing the mental and physical suffering she endured before the execution and during the failed procedure.
“We don’t know right now, and we may never know, what sort of torture she endured during that process,” Ferrell said.
During the attempted execution, Pike reportedly said, “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.” At another point, she asked, “Does this happen like that?”
The botched execution triggered a national scandal and drew a response from President Donald Trump. The following day, he said: “How does that happen? Should be easy to do. It shouldn’t be very difficult.”
Pike’s botched execution became a scandal and drew criticism from President Trump, who said: “It shouldn’t be very difficult.”
The incident also prompted Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, to announce his resignation. He is expected to leave the role later this month.
Strada said it was a ‘great honor’ to serve in his position and that he still ‘believes the Department carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.’
‘Even so, stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward,’ he said.
Pike’s attorneys have argued that the Department of Correction failed their client.
The lawyers said they believe problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into Pike’s body instead of 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 in a court filing.
They wrote that instead of ‘remedying this failure,’ the execution team prepared and administered a backup set of pentobarbital syringes.
Pike’s lawyers are seeking to have all of the evidence from her botched execution preserved so they can ensure accountability and protect her legal rights.
Pike (pictured in 1996) carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest and took a piece of her caved-in skull after bludgeoning the young woman to death with a piece of asphalt.
The court filing emphasized that Pike previously filed an appeal claiming her execution would result in cruel and unusual punishment because of her individual physical characteristics, including thrombocytosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and small veins.
Tennessee’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.
Governor Bill Lee has halted any additional executions for the year and ordered ‘a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.’
At the age of 18, Pike lured Colleen Slemmer to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee’s campus in January 1995 and, alongside her boyfriend and a friend, tortured Slemmer for up to an hour.
Slemmer was stabbed more than 100 times with a box cutter before Pike bludgeoned her to death with a piece of asphalt, carved a pentagram into her chest and took a piece of her caved-in skull as a sick souvenir.
