Christa Pike Feels Constant Pain in First Public Statement Since Failed Execution

Pike Describes Ongoing Pain

Pike said Friday that she had expected to die peacefully and had not imagined a future beyond her execution date. Instead, she said, she awoke alone and disoriented in a hospital.

In a statement dictated to her legal team from the prison infirmary, Pike said pain affects her body, mind and soul. She also said she still has difficulty speaking, a month after surviving the execution attempt.

Pike is 50 and is housed at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. She was hospitalized after the attempt and later returned to prison.

Execution Attempt And Medical Questions

Tennessee attempted to execute Pike on Sept. 30 using pentobarbital. She survived two doses; her lawyers say the injection left her arms burned and blistered. Pike was unconscious and on a ventilator during the first days of her hospitalization, according to her lawyers. Medical and lethal-injection experts have examined whether an IV-line problem caused the drug to collect in her tissue instead of reaching her bloodstream.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 stabbing death of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing, which she carried out with her boyfriend.

Investigation And Sentence Appeal

Gov. Bill Lee has called for an investigation into the failed execution and postponed the state’s other lethal injection scheduled for this year. Tennessee’s prison chief has resigned.

Pike’s attorneys have asked Lee to change her sentence to life imprisonment. Lee told reporters this week he expected the sentence to remain unchanged unless the courts decide otherwise.

Pike said she thinks about Slemmer’s family and the loss they have suffered. She also expressed gratitude to medical workers who saved her and to people who offered kindness, saying she is trying to heal one day at a time.