Seven Needle Nightmare: Killer Christa Pike is Somehow Still Alive – Here’s the Unfathomable Details Behind the Botched Execution That Has the Internet Buzzing
An ambulance carried Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike away from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday night, hours after state officials began carrying out her lethal injection. Pike did not die.
Her attorneys disclosed at a Thursday press conference that the 50-year-old is alive and receiving lifesaving care. They also demanded that Governor Bill Lee commute her sentence.
“Christa is alive. We don’t have much of a sense of her prognosis or an update on her health,” said Randy Spivey of the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender.
Spivey told reporters that blisters cover Pike and that she is burning near the area where personnel injected her.
Pike has spent 30 years on death row. She was convicted of the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at the Knoxville Jobs Corp.
The night’s events started at 7:27 p.m., when officials raised the curtains to the execution chamber and showed Pike strapped to a gurney in front of the witnesses.
Pike used the moment to deliver her last words. “I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love,” she said. She described herself as at peace.
She did not lose consciousness, however. Pike stayed awake, lifted her head and asked prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did. Her meaning remains unclear.
Spivey said that after Pike received the first dose of pentobarbital, which was meant to kill her, she sang and offered blessings to the people seated in the spectators’ room.
She then turned her attention to the medical team, according to Spivey. He said she thanked the personnel injecting her and offered to direct them to a vein near her shoulder.
“[Pike] was not just cooperative, but was trying to help instruct the people placing the IV lines,” Spivey said.
He relayed what she told the team during the process. “She over and over again said, ‘Please try up on my shoulder higher. Please try here, I think it will be okay,’” Spivey said.
Personnel stuck Pike with at least seven needles as they worked to get the deadly fluid to take effect, Spivey said. One syringe bent as staff pulled it from her arm.
Pike’s spiritual advisor joined her inside the death chamber, but officials removed him at points during the night, Spivey said.
The attorney cited the cruel and torturous nature of the proceedings.
“Last night was not just inefficient. It was cruel, and it was torturous. It was also predictable,” Spivey said Thursday.
Execution witnesses reported that personnel administered the second dose of pentobarbital by 8:26 p.m.
Pike snored behind the closed curtain until officials cut the microphone at 8:53 p.m.
Staff then escorted the witnesses out of the area, and an ambulance rushed Pike to a hospital, her attorneys said.
Her legal team said communication with Pike proved difficult for 40 minutes after officials gave her the first dose.
Spivey said that reaching his own legal team took seven minutes and six locked doors.
“I had no idea when or if medical professionals began to assist Christa,” Spivey said.
He also described how little information reached him as events unfolded. “I did not get any information or confirmation that an ambulance was on its way until 8.50,” Spivey said.
Pike’s lawyers expect to receive another update on her condition within the next 24 hours. Until then, they have offered no prognosis.
The attorneys said they hope Pike pulls through so they can sit down with her and discuss what comes next.
Stephen Ferrell of the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee said her wishes will guide that conversation.
“We want to think this through, and we want to make sure that Christa recovers and has some input in what she wants,” Ferrell said.
Continue Scrolling for the Comments
Leave a Comment