Media witnesses to the botched execution of Christa Pike described a chaotic scene in Tennessee’s death chamber after the convicted killer remained alive following two rounds of the lethal drug pentobarbital.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 18-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom she lured into a wooded area before torturing and killing her.
Prosecutors said Pike carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest with a box cutter and repeatedly struck her head with a large piece of asphalt before taking a piece of the victim’s skull as a souvenir.
Pike taken to hospital, possible brain injury
CDT on Wednesday, about an hour after the US Supreme Court overturned her stay of execution. This has to stop now,” Porter said in a statement to USA Today. Pike, 50, who would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, lifted her head and asked whether the burning pain she was experiencing was normal, witnesses said. Pike was strapped to a gurney at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution’s death chamber shortly before 7:30 p.m. “When they told us to leave at 8:53 Christa Pike was still breathing.
The execution was ultimately halted, and Pike was taken to a nearby hospital. Catherine Sweeney of WPLN, a Nashville-based local news outlet, described the scene at a press briefing after the execution was put on hold. “They went through two rounds, and she was still breathing at the end, it was very ragged, she lifted her head up and was looking around at one point. “None of that was normal. They did two separate rounds of pentobarbital – which I’ve never seen before – the protocol does say that they should do a second round if the person is still alive,” Sweeney recounted. However, the protocol does not specify what should happen if the inmate remains alive after the second round. “My arm feels like it’s about to bust. One spot is really throbbing,” Gessner heard Pike say. Her condition remained unclear as of Thursday morning. The failed execution drew condemnation from death penalty opponents, with Laura Porter, executive director of the US Campaign to End the Death Penalty, criticising the state’s handling of the procedure. “The state of Tennessee has shown the world it cannot be trusted to implement capital punishment in a way that preserves human dignity and the rule of law. “She closed her statement with saying, ‘I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free.
She said there was a spot that was burning and hurting and asked if that was normal,” Sweeney said. Sweeney said the execution team administered two separate rounds of pentobarbital, something she had not witnessed during previous executions she had covered. Tennessee’s execution protocol allows a second set of syringes to be administered “if the inmate is not deceased” after the first injection. Another witness, WKRN reporter Tori Gessner, said Pike complained of intense pain in her arm during the procedure. Pike was later taken to a nearby hospital, where her lawyers said she was “being provided life-saving measures. Dr Joel Zivot, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine and a medical expert retained by Pike’s legal team, said she may have suffered a brain injury. “It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury,” Zivot told the BBC. AP reporter Kim Chandler said Pike told witnesses she was leaving the world in the same way she had spent most of her life: “in love. “She said she had love for the people who were out here hating on her,” Chandler said. Then something about celebrating her freedom, and then she closed with, ‘This is a happy day.’” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said he had ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” and halted the remaining scheduled execution in the state for 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.
“I covered all of the executions last year and most of the ones this year, we haven’t seen anything like it. Before the execution was halted, Pike delivered her final statement.
