First woman to be executed in US state in over 200 years requests all-female execution team for tragic reason
Christa Pike's team have made a final request for the convicted criminal should their other legal pursuits fail and her execution goes ahead as planned.
Pike has been on death row for the best part of three decades after being found guilty of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995.
As her execution date looms, her legal team have been trying their best to stop it from happening. For example, they have said that Pike has a condition that would make lethal injection unnecessarily painful for the 50-year-old.
Similar concerns have been expressed by Matt Wells, the Deputy Director of Reprieve US, who said there's a 'high risk' that Pike will have 'a prolonged and agonizing death'.
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However, Senior Judge Mark Ward has since ruled that Pike's condition would not prevent medical staff from starting an IV.
Elsewhere, Pike's lawyers have filed for clemency in a petition to Gov. Bill Lee. The 200+ page document was filed with Lee's office on September 2 and stated that Pike 'respectfully asks Governor Bill Lee to grant her clemency by commuting her sentence to life without the possibility of parole'.
It adds: "Christa can still be useful. Her story of growth from a traumatized teenager to a generous, empathetic woman has the power to help others choose a different path. It already has."
It isn't thought that Gov. Lee has responded to the petition yet.
Should the clemency request not be granted, Pike's legal team have asked that only female corrections staff should be present in the death chamber on her September 30 execution, The Guardian reports.
With her reported history at sexual abuse at the hands of men, Pike is said to be 'terrified' at the thought of being pinned down on the gurney by men during her execution.
The state has reportedly declined to guarantee that would be the case.
She will be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years if everything goes ahead as planned.
Pike's case has recently been the center of a new documentary called Dead Woman Walking: Pike Vs Tennessee, where she shared details of what her final days at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville are like and how she feels about her pending execution.
"I know I said I believed a date would never be set, but now that one has been set, it's like a roulette wheel of thought and your actual brain is the ball bouncing around," Pike said. "My nerves are shredded. When I do sleep, my brain eats itself."
"I have the most horrible nightmares, but I think what has been worse is that they told me a year ahead of time," the death row inmate went on. "And so, every day I’ve woken up and lived that thought all day, every day, every waking moment."
You can watch the documentary here.
Topics: True crime, US News, Crime, Death Row
Niamh Shackleton