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Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike will likely have brain damage after her botched execution, during which she chillingly lifted her head and asked if the pain she was feeling was normal.
Pike, 50, was rushed to the hospital Wednesday after the Tennessee Department of Corrections administered two doses of the highly potent sedative, Pentobarbital, but it failed to kill her.
The murderer, who was sentenced to death for the monstrous 1995 slaying of a classmate, was “being provided life-saving measures” in the hospital, her lawyers said – but she likely has a brain injury as a result.
Emory University School of Medicine professor Dr. Joel Zivot – who was retained by Pike’s legal team as a medical expert – told the BBC that the amount of the lethal drug pentobarbital in her blood likely never reached a level high enough to stop her breathing and heartbeat.
“It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury,” Zivot explained.
Pike’s attorneys blamed “degraded pentobarbital” and damaged veins for the horrifying failure – as the blasted Tennessee officials who they claim ignored their concerns.
“We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy,” the legal team claimed.
After a second dose of the lethal drug cocktail failed to stop Pike’s heart, her lawyers filed an emergency motion for a stay of execution so she could receive medical care, which District Judge Clifton L. Corker approved.
Pike was strapped to a gurney in the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution’s death chamber just before 7:30 p.m. CDT an hour after her stay of execution was overturned by the Supreme Court.
Even seasoned media witnesses to the execution were shocked by what they saw. After the second dose didn’t take, Pike lifted her head up and looked around the room to ask if the “hurting and burning” she felt was normal.
“None of that was normal,” Catherine Sweeney of WPLN told reporters.
“I covered all of the executions last year and most of the ones this year; we haven’t seen anything like it.”
The State of Tennessee allows for a second dose of the fatal drug cocktail to be administered to a condemned inmate if the first dose doesn’t have the intended effect, but does not clarify what happens if a second dose fails, according to the Associated Press.
Here’s the latest on Christa Pike, the first woman in over 200 years to be sentenced to death in Tennessee
- Supreme Court clears the way for Christa Pike’s historic execution in Tennessee to move forward
- Appeals court halts female killer Christa Pike’s Tennessee execution at the last moment
- Tennessee’s first female death row inmate in 200 years snubs her last meal ahead of Wednesday execution
- Lone woman death row inmate says she’s ‘at peace’ ahead of execution — as Tenn. gov denies last-ditch bid for clemency
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said in a statement that “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” has been ordered, and the state’s lone execution slated for this year has been postponed.
Pike was sentenced to die in 1996 for the vicious killing of a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, 19, whom she lured into an isolated area near the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville with her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp.
The two savagely beat Slemmer before torturing her with a box cutter — carving a pentagram into her chest while she was still alive — and smashing her head with a piece of asphalt.
Pike collected a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a “trophy” of the grisly murder, which she showed off to classmates. They were arrested within 36 hours.
Pike, who was 18 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to death for the murder. Shipp, who was 17 when the killing took place, got a sentence of life plus 25 years with the possibility of parole.
He was denied parole in October 2025 “due to the seriousness of the offense,” and his case is not eligible for review until October 2031, according to 13 News Now.
With Post wires
