A condemned female murderer who survived two lethal injections during a botched execution by the US state of Tennessee is in critical condition and receiving “life-saving care,” her lawyer said on Thursday.
In an extraordinary chain of events, Christa Pike, 50, was whisked from a prison execution chamber to a hospital on Wednesday night, still alive despite two deadly doses of pentobarbital.
“What we have been told is that she is in critical condition, receiving life-saving care,” Randy Spivey said in a virtual news conference on Thursday afternoon, declining to provide further details.
He urged Governor Bill Lee, who had denied a clemency request earlier in the week, to scrap Pike’s death sentence.
“After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty. The governor must commute Christa’s sentence now.”
Experts on the US death penalty said the case was unprecedented.
“This failed attempt is the worst we’ve ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre.
The centre counts seven inmates whose executions could not be carried out because medical staff were unable to establish IV lines, but “Pike is the first person to survive after being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs.”
Late on Thursday, US President Donald Trump questioned how an execution like Pike’s could fail, telling reporters that it “shouldn’t be very difficult.”
‘Loudly snoring’
The case had already attracted scrutiny as Pike would have been the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Kim Chandler, a media witness with the Associated Press, told CBS News that “Pike appeared notably awake as the execution began” at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
“A couple of times she looked around the room. At one point she looked towards prison officials and asked if it was supposed to feel that way,” Chandler said.
Pike later began snoring and witnesses listened from the viewing area for about an hour before being ushered out.
The condemned woman was “loudly snoring, clearly very alive” as journalists left, Chandler told CBS.
Pike’s legal team had previously objected to the execution IV protocol, saying it would have caused needless suffering due to her small veins and a blood condition.
“I counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone, one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt” to start an IV line, Spivey said.
Lawyer Stephen Ferrell said medical experts had warned of needles becoming dislodged or piercing through the vein, causing lethal drugs to flow into Pike’s arm instead of the bloodstream.
“It sounds like that is likely to have occurred,” he said.
Media witnesses said Pike told execution staff her arm felt like it would “burst open,” and Spivey said he saw her right arm turn purple, especially after the second lethal injection.
Pike had not been scared to die, Ferrell said.
“It was a fear of a prolonged, painful, traumatic death, and that’s what happened, minus the death.”
‘A mess’
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it “followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol,” adding that Pike was subsequently taken to an “off-site medical facility.”
Governor Lee called for a “comprehensive, third-party review” of the failed execution.
The state’s remaining scheduled execution, convicted killer Gary Wayne Sutton is scheduled to die on 3 December, would not be carried out this year, Lee added.
Pike’s case had sparked debate over capital punishment for young criminals. She was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed Colleen Slemmer, 19, at a job training camp.
The killing gained national attention after Slemmer’s body was found with a pentagram, often seen as a satanic symbol, carved in her chest.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, told NBC News the botched execution was “a mess.”
Pike’s lawyers had argued she should be granted clemency due to her young age and mental health issues at the time of Slemmer’s killing. They also cited her history of childhood sexual assault and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Following a flurry of legal filings that delayed the execution by several hours, the US Supreme Court on Wednesday night cleared the way for the punishment to go ahead.
In the United States, only 18 women have been executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
UN rights chief Volker Turk urged Tennessee not to make a new attempt to execute Pike.
“The case of Christa Pike lays bare multiple reasons why the death penalty should be abolished,” his office said on X.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed Colleen Slemmer, 19, at a job training camp for young people.
The killing gained national attention after Slemmer’s body was found with a pentagram, often seen as a satanic symbol, carved in her chest.