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US inmate Christa Pike says she woke up 'confused and in pain' after failed execution
BBC • • general
Key Points:
- Christa Pike, a Tennessee death row inmate who survived a botched lethal injection execution in September, has released her first public statement describing ongoing physical and psychological pain from the attempt.
- Pike, 50, was hospitalized in critical condition after receiving two doses of pentobarbital but has since returned to prison, where she has spent 30 years for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.
- Tennessee Governor Bill Lee paused all executions for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review into the failed execution, though he indicated Pike’s sentence likely remains unchanged.
- Critics, including Pike’s supporters, have expressed concern that the state is focusing only on execution procedures rather than reconsidering the death penalty itself following this and other recent botched attempts.
- Pike was the first woman to be scheduled for execution in Tennessee in over 200 years, and her case has been the subject of decades of legal appeals; the state has yet to explain why the execution failed.
