What could happen to Christa Pike now after death row killer survives two lethal injections
Convicted murderer Christa Pike was due to die by lethal injection at a maximum security prison in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 30, only to survive and be raced to hospital for “lifesaving care.”
Initially described as being in a critical condition, her lawyers revealed Tuesday that Pike, 50, is now awake and speaking, making her the first person to survive a completed execution attempt.
Seven other inmates condemned to die have survived lethal injections, but only because their executioners were unable to find a vein into which to administer the fatal toxins.
Pike had been on death row for 30 years after she was convicted over the January 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
She was given two doses of pentobarbital last week but witnesses described hearing her snoring on the gurney she was strapped to in the chamber.
Pike’s attorneys said there are a number of possibilities regarding what went wrong.
The execution team worked for an hour to administer the lethal drugs, said lawyer Randy Spivey, who counted at least seven needles in her left arm.
During the struggle to locate a vein, Pike even suggested where they might find one, he said.
“Please try here, please try here,” Spivey recalled her saying. “She told them over and over, please try higher on my shoulder.”
At one point Pike asked prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way, though it’s unclear if it was after the first dose entered her body because officials do not share that information.
Her lawyers quickly filed an emergency motion to the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and that the situation violated her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.
The attempt was ultimately abandoned.
Expert Robin M Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike had experienced was “singular and unparalleled,” pointing out that while medical complications have arisen before, no one has ever survived the drugs they were given.
Had Pike’s sentence proceeded as scheduled, she would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820 and the 19th woman put to death in the U.S. since 1976.
