Christa Pike says she has been in constant pain since failed Tennessee execution
A month after Tennessee's failed lethal injection, death row inmate Christa Pike speaks out for the first time, describing ongoing pain and saying she still thinks of her victim's family.
Symbolic image · Photo: Thomas R Machnitzki (thomasmachnitzki.com) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Christa Pike, who is on death row in Tennessee, has spoken publicly for the first time since her failed execution on Sept. 30. The 50-year-old dictated the statement to her attorneys from the prison infirmary, and it was released on Friday. "There hasn't been a moment since that night when I haven't been in pain," she said, according to The Associated Press. Her arms, hands and throat hurt, she still struggles to speak, and the pain "isn't just physical," she said.
Pike survived two doses of the sedative pentobarbital. She said she had gone into the chamber prepared to die peacefully and woke up alone and confused in a hospital bed. She said she was "deeply hurt by the incompetence" that had put so many people in a terrible position. She also said she continues to think about her victim's family and the pain and loss they have endured. Pike was convicted in 1996 of the 1995 killing of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.
Her attorneys are urging Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison. Lee said this week he expects the sentence to stand "unless determined otherwise by the courts." He ordered an investigation and postponed the state's other execution planned for this year. "I don't know why I survived that night. I don't know what comes next," Pike said.