Christa Pike said she has remained in constant pain since surviving a lethal injection in Tennessee last month, but she is grateful for the love and support she has received.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Christa Pike said Friday that she continues to suffer constant pain and has difficulty speaking a month after Tennessee’s attempt to execute her failed. She attributed the ordeal to “incompetence.”
In her first public comments since the execution attempt, Pike said she had never envisioned living beyond her scheduled execution and had been ready to die peacefully. Instead, she awoke confused and alone in a hospital bed.
“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul,” Pike said.
Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital during the state’s Sept. 30 attempt to execute her for the 1995 stabbing death of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer, making her one of the youngest women ever sentenced to death.
“I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position,” she said. “I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured.”
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has ordered an investigation into the failed execution and delayed the state’s other scheduled lethal injection this year. The state’s prison chief has resigned.
Pike said she is grateful to the medical workers who saved her life, as well as to those who have shown her compassion.
“I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next. Some days, finding hope is harder than others. For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time. And I am holding on to the love and kindness of so many people who have reminded me that I am not alone,” she said.
According to her lawyers, the failed lethal injection left Pike’s arms burned and blistered. She was unconscious and on a ventilator during the first several days of her hospitalization. Medical and lethal injection experts have examined whether an IV problem caused the drug to collect in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream.
Pike’s attorneys have asked the governor to commute her death sentence to life in prison. Lee told reporters this week, “I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts.”
Friday’s statement was dictated to Pike’s legal team from the prison infirmary where she is being held. She was hospitalized immediately after the failed execution before being transferred back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
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