The execution of convicted murderer Christa Pike would have been the state’s first in nearly 200 years
A woman convicted of murder in the US state of Tennessee has been taken to hospital after surviving two doses of lethal injection drugs in a failed execution attempt, several media outlets reported Thursday, citing her lawyers and media witnesses.
Christa Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. If carried out normally, Pike’s execution, scheduled for Wednesday, would have been the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Prosecutors said Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer to a wooded area. Pike beat and cut Slemmer with a box cutter, while Shipp, who was 17 at the time, admitted carving a pentagram into her body. While Pike received the death penalty, Shipp was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Pike did not lose consciousness after two syringes of pentobarbital were administered, her attorneys said in emergency legal filings seen by the New York Times. She still had a heartbeat, they said, and was audibly snoring.
According to her lawyers, as cited by the newspaper, Pike was later taken to a nearby hospital, although they did not know her condition. Tennessee officials reportedly confirmed to a federal judge later that day that Pike was receiving medical care.
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