Tennessee death row prisoner Christa Pike has been rushed to hospital still breathing after receiving two lethal injections, her legal representatives have confirmed. Pike's defence team submitted an urgent motion to stop the execution while it was underway, stating: "Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring."
Life-saving measures after two injections
One of Pike's solicitors informed the BBC that she was "being provided life-saving measures" following the two injections. An expert on capital punishment described it as an unprecedented malfunction. "We have not been informed as to her condition," Pike's lawyers said in a statement.
Governor Bill Lee announced in a statement that he has commissioned "a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred" and that planned executions will be suspended this year. "Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective," he said.
Execution protocol and legal challenges
The Tennessee Department of Correction stated they "followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office." The state's execution protocol mandates a backup set of drug syringes be given "if the inmate is not deceased" following the initial set. However, it fails to specify procedures should the individual remain alive after the second administration.
Pike was scheduled to become the first woman executed in more than 200 years on Wednesday, but the execution had been postponed previously while the court examined whether allegations of childhood sexual abuse Pike suffered were adequately weighed during her sentencing. The Supreme Court's three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the ruling, with Ms Sotomayor noting it paves the way for the execution to occur "before her still-pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered". Despite an appeals court halting the lethal injection merely an hour before commencement, the high court determined the execution would go ahead.
Witness accounts and medical complications
Authorities administered two doses of pentobarbital to Pike, her legal team confirmed in court documents filed late Wednesday. Robin M Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, described what Pike endured as "singular and unparalleled". Seven others have endured medical complications stemming from the execution team's inability to locate a vein for administering lethal injection substances, though none have survived once the drugs were delivered, she explained.
Pike's legal representatives stated: "We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."
Media observers watching from an adjoining room reported that officials drew back the curtains to the execution chamber at 7.27pm, revealing Pike secured to a gurney. Pike stayed conscious and at one moment lifted her head, questioning prison staff whether her arm was meant to feel that way. The nature of her concern remained unclear. By 8.26pm, witnesses to the execution noted that the second dose of pentobarbital had been given. Pike could still be heard snoring beyond the drawn curtain until the microphone was switched off at 8.53pm. At that moment, an announcement was made to remove media witnesses from the vicinity.
Background of the murder and victim's family
Pike was found guilty aged 18, together with her boyfriend, of stabbing and battering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a job training centre in Knoxville. The case garnered widespread media attention after Colleen was discovered with an inverted pentagram - an emblem linked to satanic organisations - etched into her chest. Pike has refuted claims that she carved the symbol herself.
Despite Pike's assertions that she did not 'even realise the gravity of what I'd done', two fellow inmates at the facility subsequently testified that she had boasted about the killing both before and afterwards, even displaying a fragment of Colleen's skull to them. Colleen Slemmer's mother made the journey from Florida to Tennessee for the execution, disclosing she has spent decades awaiting the implementation of Pike's sentence. She said: "Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run. Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst."
Following the slaying, Pike received diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency appeal, she maintained she had only intended to confront Ms Slemmer but killed her during a frenzied assault when she couldn't "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.
