By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-09 09:37:24 | Updated at 2026-10-09 10:59:13
1 hour ago
Christa Pike is walking with assistance and eating at a hospital a week after a botched execution attempt left her unconscious, her attorneys said on Friday.
Prison officials in Tennessee administered pentobarbital to Pike, 50, on Sept. 30. After two doses, she was still breathing, saying her arm hurt, and audibly snoring. Officials ended the attempt, and she was transported to a hospital, where she was intubated and placed on a ventilator.
“While her physical recovery has been remarkable, significant questions remain about the long-term effects of what she endured,” her lawyers said.
“Christa is dealing with the profound psychological trauma of having survived a failed execution, including the terror, pain and uncertainty of believing she was about to die.”
Pike regained consciousness on Oct. 6 and was able to speak, they said.
They previously said their client was angry and confused when she first awoke. They said on Friday that she continues to have difficulty with her memory and concentration.
Doctors say, according to the lawyers, that more time will have to pass before they can assess the long-term impact of the pentobarbital on her.
It is unclear whether Tennessee will try to execute Pike again. The attorneys said they plan to ask Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“She should never be subjected to another execution attempt,” they said.
This was the second failed execution attempt this year in Tennessee.
In May, an attempt to execute inmate Tony Carruthers failed after prison nurses could not set a required backup IV, prompting the governor to grant a one-year reprieve. Lee ordered a comprehensive third-party review late on Sept. 30 and said the next day that executions were paused for the rest of 2026.
The state’s Department of Correction commissioner, Frank Strada, said on Oct. 3 that he would resign later in the month. Strada said he believed the department followed protocol, but that stepping aside was in the public interest while the review proceeds.
On Oct. 7, a Tennessee judge granted a request by Pike’s legal team to preserve evidence in the state’s failed execution attempt. They tied their request to a revived challenge to the lethal injection protocol and a possible Eighth Amendment claim that the attempt was cruel and unusual. They are also seeking clemency from the governor.
On Sept. 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit halted the scheduled 10 a.m. execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, about an hour before it was set to start.
The Sixth Circuit said it needed more time to consider Pike’s claim that the state had newly conceded her history of childhood sexual abuse, which she said undermined her earlier court proceedings.
Hours later, the Supreme Court lifted the Sixth Circuit’s stay of execution, clearing the way for what would have been Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in more than 200 years.
Three justices dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the court’s decision-making as rushed and said the Sixth Circuit needed more time.
A Knox County jury convicted Pike of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and sentenced her to death for the Jan. 12, 1995, torture killing of Colleen Slemmer, 19, her classmate at Knoxville Job Corps, a residential job training program for disadvantaged teenagers and young adults.
Prosecutors said Pike believed Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend, a claim Slemmer’s friends denied.
In 2004, she received a separate concurrent 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of another inmate in 2001.
Pike’s current lawyers say she was sexually abused starting as a toddler and raped at 11 and 17 and that the jury was not told about the abuse or how it might have affected her behavior.
The attorneys also said Pike had bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder that were not diagnosed until years after she was arrested. They said that “with time and treatment … Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime.”
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, said after the execution attempt: “I didn’t get justice for my daughter.”
Savannah Hulsey Pointer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
