The parents of a woman murdered by a death row inmate who survived two lethal injections have spoken about the failed execution. Colleen Slemmer's mother and stepfather, May and Raul Martinez Jr., were preparing to watch the execution of Christa Pike, the woman who killed May's daughter in 1995.
Witnesses Describe the Failed Procedure
Speaking to People, May said “I want to go kill Christa. How’s that?” as Pike, 50, survived two doses of lethal injection. Stepfather Raul said: “She just lay there. She moved her toes a lot.” He added: “We waited about three minutes and they said, ‘We’re going to give her another dose’. They opened another bag, and she was still picking up her head and moving around.”
He could “hear the sounds of her snoring or gurgling,” through a microphone in the room, he also added. Colleen's mum added: “If I could have gotten in that room, I would have taken the box cutter and cut her up like she did Colleen.”
Mother Remembers Colleen
May also told the AP: “Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst. Colleen’s birthday was last week. She would have been 51.”
Pike was sentenced to death for a murder she committed at age 18 in 1995. She has been on death row for decades for the killing of Colleen Slemmer, with her legal team arguing she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Execution Attempts and Aftermath
Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Slemmer's body was found with a pentagram carved onto her chest and with her head caved in by a piece of asphalt, with the pentagram attracting widespread attention due to fears of Satan worship during the 'satanic panic' of the 1980s and 1990s.
She remained on a ventilator and unconscious following the two attempted executions in which she was pierced with a needle seven times, her lawyer claimed.
Since 2022, Tennessee has carried out just four of the more than 140 executions that have taken place nationwide, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee paused executions in the state following the unsuccessful attempt to put Pike to death and ordered an independent investigation into what went wrong, as both critics and supporters of the death penalty called for changes.
Pike’s attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream. “Apparently, at no point did any member of the execution team realise that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms Pike’s body,” they wrote.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, is resigning, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said. Pike's execution was the second time since May that Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death.
