Christa Pike described a botched lethal injection as her "worst nightmare" in a prison recording made just weeks before her own failed execution. Pike was just 20 years old when she was convicted of brutally torturing and murdering her Job Corps classmate Colleen Slemmer, 19, in January 1995, with the killing leaving her facing a death penalty.
The Tennessee death row inmate, now aged 50, had feared her execution could go wrong after another prisoner, Tony Carruthers, was left suffering when his lethal injection was called off in May.
Fears over veins and physician qualifications
"The concerns I have on our lethal injection method are simply that I do not have good veins, and I'm worried about our physician not being qualified to start a central line on me," Pike said in a recording obtained by the New York Times.
"Tony Carruthers lived out my worst nightmare. Detail for detail. And I don't want to go through that," she added.
Execution abandoned after two failed attempts
Pike had been due to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years on Wednesday. But the execution was abandoned after two attempts to administer the lethal drugs failed, with Pike rushed to hospital afterwards. Her lawyers said she was in a critical condition and receiving lifesaving treatment, while suggesting she may have suffered brain damage during the botched execution.
Pike also described fears over the drugs used during her execution, saying they had been compared to the chemical drain cleaner Drano. "The drug… supposedly burns very bad," she said. "And so that sounds scary to me because they used the word Drano in speaking about this drug, and the thought of suffocating and drowning on my own bodily fluid and blood isn’t very appealing to me."
Remorse and calls for commutation
In the recordings, Pike also told how she was "very remorseful" for the killing of Slemmer, despite not feeling that way in the beginning. "I'm very remorseful now," she said. "I wasn't in the beginning when I first caught this charge. I didn't care what I had done or who I had done it to."
"The horror of the pain that I caused her family, my family, my co-defendant’s families, I have affected this world in such a negative way when all I ever wanted to do was care for people and leave love. I have done the opposite of that and that pains me," Pike said.
Maria DeLiberato, the lawyer of Tony Carruthers, said Pike had been put "right back in that room with Tony" during his execution attempt last May following her failed lethal injection. "We are joining the calls for a commutation for Christa, so she never experiences this torture again," DeLiberato said. "Moreover, we continue to ask the same for Tony, who is still recovering from his botched attempt and fighting to prove he was wrongfully convicted - all while he remains at risk of another execution attempt."
