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Christa Pike's lawyers provide major update on her condition after surviving 'chemical torture' during botched execution
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Christa Pike’s lawyers has given an update on the condition of the murderer, who survived execution by lethal injection yesterday.
Her execution was initially stayed by the court, but then the Supreme Court overruled that ruling and an attempt was made to carry out her death sentence.
Christa Pike remains in hospital
She was injected with a concoction of drugs intended to end her life, but survived somehow, as her lawyers had claimed that she might, and was taken to hospital.
Lethal injection is a controversial method of execution around the world, with staggering stats about how many times it goes wrong.
This was one of the most high profile times that it has gone wrong, and one of very few times where someone has survived the injections themselves.
Now, Pike - who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer - is in the hospital, and lawyers have provided a major update on her condition and the procedure that caused her to be there.
The 50-year-old’s attorney Randy Spivey said that the state of Tennessee was to blame for the botched killing, claiming it was ‘inefficient, cruel and torturous.’
It is not known whether Pike will face the needles again, or whether her sentence will be changed.
In his statement, Spivey said: “Christa is alive. We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health.”
Speaking about the attempt made to execute her at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Wednesday, he said: “I counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone,
“One of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her left arm after an unsuccessful attempt.”
Her other attorney Stephen Ferrell said that Pike even assisted the execution team in finding IV lines.
He said: “Ms. Pike was not just cooperative, but was trying to help instruct the people placing the IV lines of where they could find them,
“She over and over again said, ‘Please, try up on my shoulder higher. Please, try here, please try here. I think it will be Okay,’ and she thanked them, at least when they thought they had established a line.
“Ms. Pike was kind, she was cooperative, and she was at peace the whole time.”
He also claimed that Pike’s arms now had ‘blistering and burning’ where she was injected.
Christa Pike’s attorneys call for her sentence to be commuted
Following this execution attempt, the lawyers called on Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison, although it is not clear whether she will be well enough to serve that sentence.
Lee has since halted executions in the state and said that the one other scheduled execution of 2026 will not now take place.
However, Spivey claimed that doesn’t go far enough.
He said: “After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.”
He also called what Pike underwent ‘chemical torture’.
Ferrell said: “We will never know exactly what physical pain and what mental pain she was going through,
“But that was her biggest fear as a survivor of sexual abuse, that she would be pinned down, prodded, poked, cut for a prolonged period of time.”
It remains to be seen what Pike’s fate will hold, ultimately.
For now, she remains in hospital with those on the outside awaiting information and fighting for her sentence to be changed.