Death row killer Christa Pike taken to hospital after lethal injection as lawyer issues update
Christa Pike is receiving life-saving care in hospital after her high-profile execution went dramatically wrong.
After 30 years on death row, Pike was due to be executed by lethal injection yesterday (September 30) – but she is still alive after receiving not one, but two doses of pentobarbital.
Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10am local time on Wednesday for the killing she committed at age 18 and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start and hours later the US Supreme Court overturned that stay.
Advert
Following the botched execution, Pike is now 'being provided life-saving measures' in hospital, one of her attorneys told BBC News.
They said: "We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike, then aged 18, and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp horrifically beat and tortured Slemmer for 30 minutes to an hour, before Pike delivered the fatal blow.
Media witnesses observing the execution-gone-wrong from a separate room said officials raised curtains to the execution chamber at 7.27pm, showing Pike strapped to a gurney, ITV News reports.
Pike remained awake and at one point raised her head and told prison officials a spot on her arm felt like it was about to burst open and asked if it was supposed to feel that way.
By 8.26pm, execution witnesses reported that the second dose of pentobarbital had been administered.
Pike continued to be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at 8.53pm. At that time, there was an announcement to escort media witnesses out of the area.
Governor Bill Lee has reacted to the news that Pike is still alive and said in a statement that he has ordered 'a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred' and that scheduled executions will not be carried out this year.
"Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective," he said.
Tennessee only had one other execution scheduled this year; Gary Wayne Sutton had been scheduled for execution December 3.
While Gov. Lee has ordered a probe into what happened, the Tennessee Department of Correction has insisted that they did everything correctly.
Department spokesperson Dorinda Carter said (per Knox News): "The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office.
"The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility."
Niamh Shackleton