Christa Pike, 50, remains in critical condition in a Tennessee hospital after a failed lethal injection execution attempt on Wednesday. Witnesses described the scene as "haunting," and her legal team has demanded her death sentence be commuted.
Pike, who spent decades on death row, received both a primary and secondary dose of pentobarbital, but neither proved fatal. Attorney Randy Spivey stated on Thursday: "We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment." He added: "But we do know that she is alive right now."
Witnesses report distressing scenes
Witnesses reported that Pike was snoring when the execution chamber's microphone was switched off more than an hour into the procedure. Lawyers revealed that at least seven needles were inserted into her left arm alone, according to the Daily Star. They said what transpired should "never happen again" after watching Pike struggle for breath, glance about, and express discomfort from a burning feeling.
Spivey said: "I'm haunted by last night. What I saw last night is not something that should ever, ever happen again."
Case background and legal dispute
Before the execution went wrong, Pike's case had already sparked a prominent legal dispute, with proceedings halted just hours beforehand. Pike received the death sentence for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, who was 19 when she was enticed to a secluded spot on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. Pike was found guilty alongside her boyfriend in 1996. The court learned that a pentagram had been etched into Slemmer's chest and that Pike had displayed fragments of her skull to acquaintances as a keepsake.
Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, who traveled to Tennessee to witness the execution, told NBC News the attempt "was a mess."
Medical concerns following the attempt
Dr Joel Zivot, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine, told the BBC that Pike likely never reached adequate blood levels of pentobarbital to induce respiratory arrest or cardiac failure. He continued: "It's very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation, she will have a brain injury."
