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Christa Pike: Colleen Slemmer's mom reacts to killer waking after botched execution
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The mother of Colleen Slemmer, who was killed by Christa Pike, has reacted to the news that she is now awake after her failed execution last week.
May Martinez, who lost her daughter in 1995 to the brutal murder, was present at the botched lethal injection, and has now spoken out at the news that Pike is speaking in hospital.
Christa Pike’s lethal injection saga carries on
Pike was sentenced to death for the murder over 30 years ago, but Martinez’s woes are still far from over.
After Pike was administered a theoretically fatal dose of pentobarbital, she expected to watch her daughter’s killer die from behind the glass with the other witnesses.
However, it all went wrong.
Pike’s legal team had argued beforehand that there could be complications with the lethal injection, as well as making the case that she should be considered for commutation of sentence to life without parole for other - as they saw it - mitigating factors.
However, it went to the execution chamber, and it quickly became clear during the process that something had gone wrong.
Pike initially asked a question of those who were injecting her, and then it became obvious to witnesses - Martinez included - that something had gone awry.
Now that Pike has spend several days in hospital receiving lifesaving care after the failed attempt to carry out her sentence, thoughts have turned to what will happen to her next.
What next for Christa Pike?
To start with, there are a few legal cases from the past that could be informative about what happens when a sentence is effectively carried out, but fails to kill the prisoner.
There is the case of whether Pike will be mentally fit to face the sentence for a second time, and whether it would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
There’s currently doubt about whether she could serve a prison sentence, let alone undergo a second execution attempt.
Martinez has long spoken of her desire to see Pike die, hence why she traveled to witness the sentence.
Now, she has given her thoughts on what should happen next, and it seems as if she might have lost some faith in the justice system.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said in response to questions from WBIR.
“They’re going to do what they’re going to do,” she added.
Unfortunately, that’s about all anyone has to go off at the moment, given how up in the air things are.
For Pike, it remains to be seen what kind of faculties she recovers and what shape she can get back to.
For the state, it remains to be seen whether attempting a second go at the lethal injection is expedient to them - from a political and moral stance as much as anything.
But, for the family of Pike’s victims - and Colleen Slemmer’s poor mother in particular - the wait for justice goes on, and she remains hanging in limbo, unaware of what will become of the woman who so brutally murdered her daughter.