Christa Pike has spoken publicly for the first time since her botched execution on Sept. 30.
“I entered the execution chamber at Riverbend men’s prison ready to die,” Pike said in a statement dictated to her legal team on Oct. 30 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 how grateful I was for them. I also told the people in the room and those witnessing my execution that I was leaving them in loving kindness.”
Pike detailed the physical suffering she endured after executioners reportedly struggled to place an IV. Her attorneys believe that once the drugs were administered, they may have seeped into the tissue surrounding the vein rather than entering her bloodstream.
“Several days later, I woke up alone in a hospital, confused and in pain,” said Pike, who is now being held at Tennessee’s Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. “There has not been a moment since that night when I have been free of pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain is not only physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Surviving the fate she had long expected has now added a profound emotional burden to Pike’s physical pain.
“I had not imagined a life beyond that night, and I am deeply hurt by the incompetence that has placed so many people in this terrible situation,” 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 experienced.”
She added, “I am recovering, and I know I am becoming stronger. But healing is not the same as being okay.”
The 50-year-old woman also described the conditions in which she is currently living.
“Since that night, I have been largely isolated in the prison medical ward, separated 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 now feels like a return to that condition.”
Pike’s future remains unresolved. 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 trying to find meaning in what happened to me,” Pike said. “One source of strength has been 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, as well as complete strangers who have never met me.”
“Knowing that so many people care about me and see me as a human being whose life matters is something I cannot fully express,” she continued. “It is humbling, and it has moved me more deeply than I can explain.”
Pike expressed gratitude to the first responders and hospital staff who, she said, “treated me with compassion, dignity and respect,” as well as to her attorneys, who “refused to give up on me.”
She also thanked her supporters, including many “complete strangers who have never met me.”
“I do not know why I survived that night,” Pike said in closing. “I do not know what comes next. Some days, it is harder to find hope than others. For now, I am trying to heal one day at a time and hold on to the love and kindness of the many people who have reminded me that I am not alone.”
