Death row inmate Christa Pike is still alive after receiving two lethal injections and has been taken to hospital, her lawyer says. The Tennessee inmate's legal team filed an emergency motion to stop the execution as it was happening, saying: "Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring."
Life-saving measures after injections
The BBC were told by one of her attorneys that Pike, 50, was "being provided life-saving measures" after receiving the two injections. The state of Tennessee are yet to comment.
Earlier on Wednesday there was a delay on the execution, as the court needed to consider whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her sentencing. The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the ruling, with Ms Sotomayor writing that it clears the way for the execution to happen “before her still-pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered”. It was decided by the high court that the execution would proceed.
Conviction and victim's family reaction
Pike, who was 18 at the time, and her boyfriend were convicted of the stabbing and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. The case gained widespread media attention as Colleen was found with an inverted pentagram - a symbol that is associated with satanic groups - carved into her chest. Pike has denied carving the symbol herself. Two other inmates at the camp later testified that Pike had bragged about the murder before and after, even showing them a piece of Colleen's skull.
Colleen Slemmer's mother told the Associated Press she has waited decades to see Pike's sentence carried out. She said: "Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run." May Martinez was helped by a group to raise funds for her and her husband to travel from Florida to Tennessee to witness the execution. "Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst," Martinez said.
Pike's mental health and statement
After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency petition, she said she only wanted to fight Ms Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she could not “put the brakes on”.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement.
