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Christa Pike’s alternative last-meal request revealed as prison chief announces resignation following botched execution
On September 30, Christa Pike was left unconscious and rushed to a Nashville-area hospital after the execution attempt.
According to reports, she is currently intubated and on a mechanical ventilator while doctors work to clear the drug from her system.
Her lawyers say prison staff struggled to establish intravenous access and used at least seven needles during the procedure.
At one stage, she allegedly complained that her arm felt like "it's about to burst open," and later allegedly asked: "Does this happen like that?"
Pike turned down her $20 final meal
Before the botched execution, Pike was entitled to spend $20 on a final meal.
Rather than choosing food for herself, she reportedly asked for the money to be used to buy pizza for homeless people in downtown Nashville, according to The New York Times.
The request came shortly before the planned execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution descended into a medical emergency.
The fallout from the failed execution has now reached the top of Tennessee's prison system as Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, is now set to resign.
He said stepping aside was "in the best interests" of Tennessee, and described the investigation into the failed procedure as "entirely appropriate and necessary," per CNN.
Governor Bill Lee has also suspended the state's remaining executions for the year and ordered an independent review.
Lawyers describe problems with IV lines
Pike's legal team said prison staff struggled to establish intravenous access before two sets of syringes containing pentobarbital were administered.
According to them, she "could be heard crying, whimpering, and breathing loudly throughout the procedure."
Attorney Randy Spivey spoke about the extent of the attempts on Thursday, saying: "I counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone."
He added that one needle "appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her left arm after an unsuccessful attempt".
Pike's attorneys have said both her arms were left swollen, blistered, and burned following the repeated attempts to establish IV access.
Their filings suggest that pentobarbital may have entered the tissue surrounding her veins rather than circulating properly through her bloodstream.
They also alleged that the execution team failed to recognize that the lines had been incorrectly placed or that Pike's veins had blown while the drug was being administered.
Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist advising Pike's legal team, said two doses of pentobarbital would normally have been fatal if the drug had circulated properly.
He said the only possible explanation for her survival is that "the pentobarbital blood level was never high enough to cause death."
Hospital staff are now working to support the inmate and clear the drug from her system.
Pike was sentenced to death in March 1996 after admitting to the horrific murder of her 19-year-old Job Corps classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
She had become convinced that Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and the pair - along with their friend, Shadolla Peterson, who acted as lookout - lured Slemmer to a secluded location where she was brutally beaten and killed.
Her body was later discovered with a pentagram carved into her chest, and her skull had been caved in with a piece of asphalt, with Pike reportedly keeping a piece of the skull and showing it off around the school.
She confessed to the killing and was sentenced to death.
Had last Wednesday's execution gone as planned, she would have become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Instead, she remains critically ill while her lawyers seek to have her sentence commuted, and the state investigates how the execution went so badly wrong.