Christa Pike skipped her last meal before a failed execution

On the eve of the failed execution, American Christa Pike skipped her last meal, according to a report in the New York Times.

Instead, she asked that the $20 earmarked for pizza be used for homeless people in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.

Pike was scheduled to be executed last Wednesday, but survived two lethal injections.

According to her lawyers, the 50-year-old was still unconscious and connected to a ventilator.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

She was 18 years old at the time of the crime.

In 1995, three teenagers tortured and killed the victim in a remote area near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

During her time in prison, according to US media, Pike was convicted of attempted murder in a separate case after an attack on a fellow prisoner.

It remains unclear why Pike survived the execution despite two doses of the drug pentobarbital.

The case has once again sparked a heated debate in the USA about the death penalty and how it is carried out.

The head of the Tennessee Department of Corrections recently announced his resignation.

There is also growing criticism of the qualifications and training of the personnel involved in the execution.