Botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee: Lawyers report further unconsciousness and ventilation

According to her lawyers, murderer Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death in the US state of Tennessee, remains unconscious and connected to a ventilator after her failed execution. Pike is intubated and receiving ventilator support at a hospital in Nashville, Pike's lawyers wrote in a court filing Friday.

The 50-year-old was scheduled to be executed with a lethal injection on Wednesday evening (local time). But after she was given the two doses of the drug pentobarbital required by the protocol, according to authorities, she continued to live.

Pike has been in critical condition since the failed execution. Hospital staff are working to save her life and remove the administered pentobarbital from her body, the lawyers wrote.

More details on failed execution

On Thursday, Pike's attorney, Randy Spivey, said staff tried unsuccessfully to establish an intravenous line for about an hour during the attempted execution. "I counted at least seven needles in her left arm alone," Spivey said. According to the court filing, one of them was bent 90 degrees when pulled out.

Pike was heard crying during the procedure. She breathed loudly and said: "My arm feels like it's about to burst open." Another time she asked if it was normal.

When she was taken to the hospital, both of the 50-year-old's arms were "swollen, burned and covered in blisters." Experts are quoted in the application as saying that the injected pentobarbital is highly alkaline and causes burns to skin, tissue and veins on contact. During the execution, her right arm turned purple, according to her lawyers.

According to the lawyers, people entrusted with the execution apparently did not notice that the poison was getting “in whole or in part” into the surrounding tissue instead of into Pike’s veins. So it was decided to give the convicted murderer another dose of pentobarbital.

Governor orders external investigation

After the incident, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all further executions for the rest of the year and ordered a full investigation by an outside agency. It is unclear whether and under what conditions the state could try to carry out the death sentence again.

For Tennessee, it is the second failed execution attempt in just a few months. In May, the state had to stop the execution of prisoner Tony Carruthers after failing to establish the necessary intravenous lines. Unlike Pike, however, he was not given the deadly drug at the time.

Campaigns against executions were unsuccessful

Several campaigns had tried to stop the planned execution on September 30th. The human rights organization Amnesty International highlighted that Pike suffered rape, sexual and physical violence, abuse and neglect during her childhood. United Nations experts had also called for a stop to the execution.

The spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres also commented on the developments in the case. “We are of the opinion that there should not be the death penalty,” said the spokesman in response to a question from journalists. The United Nations has always been very open about this, “regardless of which country it still exists in.”

The death penalty is permitted in more than two dozen of the 50 US states, although in many places it is no longer actually carried out. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 28 criminals have been executed in the United States this year through September 24.

In addition to executions by lethal injection, executions of the death penalty by the electric chair or - more rarely - by firing squad are also common in the United States.

Pike was sentenced to death for murder in 1996

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.

According to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, Pike is the only one of the three to be sentenced to death. Her boyfriend at the time was 17 years old at the time of the crime and received a life sentence. Another 18-year-old was sentenced to probation.