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A reporter who witnessed the botched execution of murderer Christa Pike revealed the moment witnesses knew something was going wrong.
Death row inmate Pike, 50, was set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee for over 200 years Wednesday, but was instead rushed to hospital after two bungled attempts to end her life.
“As we’re sitting in this room, and it’s now taking nearly an hour for them to open the curtain from the time that we’re sat, one of my colleagues in there, who had seen her fair share of executions, who was kind enough to kind of walk me through the process, leaned over and said, ‘It should not be taking this long for the curtains to open. Something’s going wrong,’” Will Puckett, one of just seven media witnesses at the execution, told The US Sun.
Puckett dubbed the experience “surreal” and admitted he had been left “at a loss for words” during the botched execution at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
He added that he had expected the Tennessee Department of Correction to say, “This isn’t happening. We have another execution that has not gone correctly. We’ll share more information,” but instead they opened the curtains.
After Pike was rushed to the hospital, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he was halting executions in the state for the rest of the year and ordering an independent review of what went wrong.
Here’s the latest on the botched execution of Tennessee murderer Christa Pike:
- Christa Pike’s botched execution witness shares moment he knew ‘something’s going wrong’
- Witness reveals eerie new details from Christa Pike’s botched execution — including condemned woman’s haunting song
- Xavier Becerra makes his death penalty stance clear after botched Christa Pike execution
- Mom of Christa Pike’s victim has furious response to watching failed execution: ‘They f–ked up’
Pike’s lawyers revealed Thursday that she was in critical condition and receiving lifesaving care.
Her attorney, Randy Spivey, said she had been strapped to a gurney for an hour while medical staff jabbed her with at least seven needles – one of which was bent when it came out of her arm.
Pike was sentenced to death for brutally murdering her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in a jealous rage in Jan. 1995 because she believed the victim was trying to steal her boyfriend, prosecutors said.
