Christa Pike Reveals Agony One Month After Surviving Execution Attempt - Newsweek

Christa Pike has revealed the agony she has endured since Tennessee's failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection.

In a statement on Friday, Pike, 50, said she remains in constant pain after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her on September 30 for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer.

In her first public statement since the botched execution, Pike said she had been prepared to die in the execution chamber and had not contemplated life after that.

She said she woke up confused in her hospital bed several days after the execution attempt.

"There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak," she said. "And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul."

She added: "I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position. I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured."

Pike’s failed execution brought renewed scrutiny on how states carry out the death penalty in the U.S, particularly by means of lethal injection, and raised questions about whether Tennessee could make another attempt to put her to death.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has called for an investigation into what happened during the failed execution and postponed the state’s other lethal injection scheduled this year.

Pike was hospitalized after the failed execution but later moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women's prison where she has been housed for 30 years.

Friday’s statement was dictated to Pike’s legal team from the infirmary at the prison, according to The Associated Press.

Pike said she is recovering and getting stronger.

"But healing is not the same as being OK," she said. "Since that night, I have been largely isolated in the prison’s medical ward, away from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me."

She added that the love and support she has received from people around the world has given her strength.

"To know that so many people care about me, that they see me as a human being whose life matters, is something I cannot fully put into words," she said. "It is humbling, and it has touched me more deeply than I can explain."

She also thanked the first responders, doctors and nurses who saved her life.

"They treated me with compassion, dignity and respect," she said. "I will never forget their kindness."

Finally, she thanked her attorneys "and everyone who has fought for me, stood beside me and refused to give up on me."

She said: "I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next. Some days, finding hope is harder than others.

"For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time. And I am holding on to the love and kindness of so many people who have reminded me that I am not alone."

Pike was 18 when she killed Colleen Slemmer and became one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death.

She and her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp were convicted in the 1995 killing of Slemmer, their classmate at Knoxville Job Corps. A jury sentenced her to death in 1996.

Shipp, who was 17 when Slemmer was killed, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to a secluded area where she and Shipp tortured and killed her.

Pike's lawyers subsequently pursued numerous appeals, challenging aspects of her conviction, trial and sentence, but the courts upheld the death penalty.

The case received widespread attention because of the brutality of the killing, the ages of the people involved and because a satanic symbol was carved into the victim’s body.

It’s not clear if or when Tennessee could move to try to execute Pike again.

Asked if Tennessee would make another attempt to execute Pike or if he would commute her sentence, Lee told reporters on Wednesday: "As it relates to a particular individual like Christa Pike and her crime, she is still incarcerated under the laws of the state of Tennessee.

"And I suspect her sentence will be the same as it was before unless determined otherwise by the courts."

Other states have previously moved forward with attempts to execute inmates a second time, but in each of those cases, the first attempt was stopped before any drugs began flowing.

Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law and a death penalty expert, previously told Newsweek that a second attempt to execute Pike could violate the constitutional protection against double jeopardy.

"The state has one bite of the apple," Denno said, describing the double-jeopardy argument Pike’s lawyers could pursue. "They can't come back and say, ‘Well, we didn't do it right.’"

Pike’s attorneys have called on Lee to commute Pike’s death sentence to the life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

"Christa has endured more than enough," they said in a statement on October 8. "She should never be subjected to another execution attempt."

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Tony Phillips.