Tennessee failed to execute Christa Pike, sentenced for a 1995 murder, despite her lawyers' claims that she was administered two doses of lethal injection. The state's Department of Correction confirmed that Pike survived the attempted execution.
Pike, 50, was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday at 10:00 am for the crime committed as an 18-year-old. It would have been the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in over 200 years. Her lawyers stated to local television that the situation had 'turned into agony and a violation of Pike's right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.'
The Department of Correction stated that the 'chemical in the protocol is consistently effective' and that the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond those carried out that evening. It added that 'Christa Pike was transported to an outpatient medical facility.'
At a press conference, witnesses described hearing Pike snoring 40 minutes after the two doses of pentobarbital were administered. Seven witnesses who had been in the room to observe the execution stated, in a live broadcast by station WVLT, that Pike was clearly alive after the injection and was snoring before being removed from the room by correctional officers. Investigative journalist John North, who was a witness at the scene, stated: 'It seems this did not go as planned.' He added: 'When we left the building, as far as we knew, she was still alive.'
Pike's sentence was paused earlier on Wednesday by an appellate court, which ruled 2-1 that the delay was necessary to assess whether her claims of childhood abuse had been fully considered during sentencing. The governor and the Supreme Court had previously rejected appeals for clemency. The state attorney general immediately appealed to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the delay rewarded 'Pike's lawyers' tactical stalling,' according to the Associated Press. The US Supreme Court sided with Tennessee in an order signed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, supported by liberal colleagues Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the court's decision, stating that it 'opens the door to the state executing Pike before her pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered.'
Pike was convicted 30 years ago. She was 18 when she and her then 17-year-old boyfriend killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a colleague at the Knoxville Job Corps, in 1995. The case attracted national attention due to the ages of those involved and the brutality of the murder. According to prosecutors, Pike was concerned that Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend, Tadaryle Shipp. Together, they lured Slemmer to a wooded area behind the steam plant at the Tennessee campus on 12 January 1995. Pike cut Slemmer's throat and stomach with a box cutter, then struck her head with a stone. Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Pike never denied her involvement in Slemmer's murder. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In a statement included in her petition for clemency, Pike said: 'I was a mentally ill 18-year-old child. It took me many years to even understand the gravity of what I had done. Even more, to accept how many lives I had affected. I took the life of a child, a sister, a friend. The thought that I was capable of committing such a crime haunts me now.'
On Saturday, May Martinez, Slemmer's mother, said she was waiting for Pike's execution. Martinez told the Associated Press: 'Every time I think about it, I think of Colleen feeling that pain and trying to stand up and run away.' She added: 'I think of Colleen every day, every minute. The holidays are the worst.'
