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Witness speaks out on song Christa Pike sung during botched execution
A witness has spoken out about Christa Pike bursting out into song during her botched execution.
Pike was set to become the first woman executed in the state of Tennessee in over 200 years this past week, but two attempts at giving her a lethal dose of barbiturates failed.
Now, a witness who saw first-hand Pike's botched execution has spoken about the bizarre behavior of the murderer just before she was supposed to die.
What was the song Christa Pike sang during her botched execution?
WVLT anchor and senior reporter William Puckett was one of the few witnesses gathered for Pike's execution.
Puckett said that he could see everything from his viewing room in the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee.
Giving a play-by-play of events, Puckett revealed that moments before Pike was administered with the first of the should-have-been lethal shots, she spontaneously burst into song.
She didn't recount a well-known Top 40 hit, however, instead choosing to belt out the lines of a Buddhist mantra.
"Be kind and gentle to yourself," Pike sang according to Puckett. "And may you be at peace."
Killer Pike snoring "like she had the best sleep of her life"
At 7:41PM, Puckett said that a rock was placed in view of the assembled visitors, signaling to them that the lethal shot had been administered.
However, it didn't take long to realize that something was wrong. Pike spoke to her spiritual advisor at 7:44PM and a curtain dropped over the room at 7:46PM, a traditional symbol that an execution has been completed.
Much to everyone's surprise, it wasn't hard to guess that the first injection hadn't worked. Puckett reports that soon after, witnesses could hear Pike snoring.
"It was like she was getting the best sleep of her life," he said. "[It was a] loud, deep in the back of the sinus cavity snore."
Puckett then describes the scene of Pike being given a second, back-up lethal injection... only for her snoring to continue on for another 50 minutes, another signal it had failed yet again.
At 8:53PM - over an hour since they had been gathered to watch Pike die - the media were escorted from the room, Pike still heard snoring.
As it currently stands, Pike has survived the two shots of lethal injections but remains in a critical condition in the hospital.
She was originally sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, whom Pike thought was going to steal her boyfriend.