Key takeaways:
- Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and returned to prison after 10 days in the hospital.
- Her lawyer said she was up and walking by Thursday but remained somewhat foggy and had limited use of her arms.
- Governor Bill Lee has paused Tennessee executions for the rest of the year.
Christa Pike is back in a Tennessee prison after surviving a lethal-injection attempt and spending 10 days in the hospital, her lawyers said Saturday. She continues to receive medical care. Officials have not explained why the execution failed.
Pike, 50, returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been imprisoned for about 30 years. Officials administered two doses of pentobarbital on September 30, but the drugs did not kill her.
“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances,” her lawyers, Stephen Ferrell, Luke Ihnen, Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason, said in a statement. “She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery.”
Her condition improved during her hospitalization. By Thursday, a lawyer said Pike was “up and walking,” though she remained “somewhat foggy” and could not use her arms very much, according to The Guardian.
During the attempted execution, Pike said her arms were burning and asked whether they were supposed to feel that way, The Guardian reported. Witnesses in the chamber said “nothing was normal.” Officials have maintained that they followed every step of Tennessee’s approved execution protocol.
There has been no official explanation for Pike’s survival. The Guardian reported that medical experts have suggested the drug might have missed her vein, a vein might have ruptured, the drug might have been faulty, or several factors might have played a role. Her lawyers had warned months earlier that her veins could pose a problem.
Pike was convicted of the 1995 torture and murder of Colleen Slemmer, an 18-year-old classmate at Knoxville Job Corps. According to court filings cited by The Guardian, Pike, then 19, feared Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, then 17. Pike and Shipp were convicted of taking Slemmer to a wooded area of the University of Tennessee campus and killing her. Pike received a death sentence; Shipp received life in prison because he was under 18.
“It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,” Pike said in an earlier clemency petition quoted by The Guardian. “I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend.” Her attorneys said she was diagnosed after the murder with bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has paused executions in the state for the rest of the year, and the state’s top prison official has announced his resignation. Al Jazeera reported that some Republican state legislators have discussed using the electric chair or firing squads.
A separate controversy concerns the military’s plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, a former army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. The Guardian reported that the Pentagon plans to carry out the execution by firing squad in December. Al Jazeera reported that Hasan’s execution is scheduled for December 3. Vice President JD Vance questioned whether the livestream would happen and said he would not watch, according to Al Jazeera.
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