Tennessee woman on death row taken to hospital after surviving two lethal injections
✓Tennessee officials were unable to carry out the execution of Christa Pike despite her being administered two doses of a lethal injection drug, her lawyers said, adding that she had been taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Her attorneys told a local news station “this has turned into agony and a violation of Pike’s right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.”
The Tennessee Department of Correction later confirmed that Pike had survived the state’s effort to execute her, saying “the lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.”
“Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility,” the statement concluded.
In a press conference, media witnesses described hearing Pike snore 40 minutes after she was administered two doses of pentobarbital.
Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10 am Wednesday for a killing she committed at age 18, and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start, but hours later the US supreme court overturned that stay.
Pike’s attorneys have filed an emergency motion to the US supreme court asking to halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and the state is violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.
Seven journalists who were in the room to witness the execution said afterward, on a livestream hosted by WVLT television station, that after the injection Pike was clearly alive and snoring before corrections officials escorted journalists out.
“It appears this did not go how this was supposed to go,” said investigative journalist John North of WBIR who was a witness at the execution site, adding “when we left the building, so far as we knew, she was probably still alive.”
Earlier Pike, who was convicted of murder 30 years ago, had her execution haltedby an appeals court in a 2-1 ruling, that said the delay was necessary to assess whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her sentencing. The state governor and the supreme court had earlier refused calls for clemency.
Tennessee’s attorney general immediately appealed the ruling to the supreme court, writing that the 11th-hour stay rewarded “abusive delay tactics by Pike’s attorneys”, according to the Associated Press.
The US supreme court sided with Tennessee in an order signed by justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal justices Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the court’s order “because its decision clears the way for the state to execute Pike before her still-pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered”.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, one of their classmates at Knoxville Job Corps in 1995.
The case garnered nationwide headlines due to the ages of those involved and the brutality of the murder.
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According to prosecutors, Pike was worried Slemmer was trying to take her then boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, away fom her. Together, they lured Slemmer into a wooded area behind the agriculture campus steam plant at the University of Tennessee on 12 January 1995. Pike cut Slemmer’s stomach and throat with a box cutter before smashing her head with a rock.
Shipp carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest and Pike later showed a friend a fragment of Slemmer’s skull.
Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Pike has never denied her involvement in Slemmer’s killing and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement that was included in her clemency petition.
On Saturday, May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, said she was waiting for Pike’s execution.
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez told the Associated Press, adding: “Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
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Christa Pike, sentenced to death over 1995 murder, was heard snoring 40 minutes after lethal doses administered, witnesses said. Tennessee officials were unable to carry out the…
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Tennessee officials were unable to carry out the execution of Christa Pike despite her being administered two doses of a lethal injection drug, her lawyers said, adding that she had been taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Her attorneys told a local news station “this has turned into agony and a violation of Pike’s right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.”
The Tennessee Department of Correction later confirmed that Pike had survived the state’s effort to execute her, saying “the lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.”
“Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility,” the statement concluded.
In a press conference, media witnesses described hearing Pike snore 40 minutes after she was administered two doses of pentobarbital.
Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10 am Wednesday for a killing she committed at age 18, and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start, but hours later the US supreme court overturned that stay.
Pike’s attorneys have filed an emergency motion to the US supreme court asking to halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and the state is violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.
Seven journalists who were in the room to witness the execution said afterward, on a livestream hosted by WVLT television station, that after the injection Pike was clearly alive and snoring before corrections officials escorted journalists out.
“It appears this did not go how this was supposed to go,” said investigative journalist John North of WBIR who was a witness at the execution site, adding “when we left the building, so far as we knew, she was probably still alive.”
Earlier Pike, who was convicted of murder 30 years ago, had her execution haltedby an appeals court in a 2-1 ruling, that said the delay was necessary to assess whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her sentencing. The state governor and the supreme court had earlier refused calls for clemency.
Tennessee’s attorney general immediately appealed the ruling to the supreme court, writing that the 11th-hour stay rewarded “abusive delay tactics by Pike’s attorneys”, according to the Associated Press.
The US supreme court sided with Tennessee in an order signed by justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal justices Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the court’s order “because its decision clears the way for the state to execute Pike before her still-pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered”.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, one of their classmates at Knoxville Job Corps in 1995.
The case garnered nationwide headlines due to the ages of those involved and the brutality of the murder.
after newsletter promotion
According to prosecutors, Pike was worried Slemmer was trying to take her then boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, away fom her. Together, they lured Slemmer into a wooded area behind the agriculture campus steam plant at the University of Tennessee on 12 January 1995. Pike cut Slemmer’s stomach and throat with a box cutter before smashing her head with a rock.
Shipp carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest and Pike later showed a friend a fragment of Slemmer’s skull.
Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Pike has never denied her involvement in Slemmer’s killing and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement that was included in her clemency petition.
On Saturday, May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, said she was waiting for Pike’s execution.
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez told the Associated Press, adding: “Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Read the full story at BBC ↗ · The Guardian ↗ · Al Jazeera ↗
Tennessee officials were unable to carry out the execution of Christa Pike despite her being administered two doses of a lethal injection drug, her lawyers said, adding that she had been taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Her attorneys told a local news station “this has turned into agony and a violation of Pike’s right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.”
The Tennessee Department of Correction later confirmed that Pike had survived the state’s effort to execute her, saying “the lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.”
“Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility,” the statement concluded.
In a press conference, media witnesses described hearing Pike snore 40 minutes after she was administered two doses of pentobarbital.
Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10 am Wednesday for a killing she committed at age 18, and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start, but hours later the US supreme court overturned that stay.
Pike’s attorneys have filed an emergency motion to the US supreme court asking to halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and the state is violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.
Seven journalists who were in the room to witness the execution said afterward, on a livestream hosted by WVLT television station, that after the injection Pike was clearly alive and snoring before corrections officials escorted journalists out.
“It appears this did not go how this was supposed to go,” said investigative journalist John North of WBIR who was a witness at the execution site, adding “when we left the building, so far as we knew, she was probably still alive.”
Earlier Pike, who was convicted of murder 30 years ago, had her execution haltedby an appeals court in a 2-1 ruling, that said the delay was necessary to assess whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her sentencing. The state governor and the supreme court had earlier refused calls for clemency.
Tennessee’s attorney general immediately appealed the ruling to the supreme court, writing that the 11th-hour stay rewarded “abusive delay tactics by Pike’s attorneys”, according to the Associated Press.
The US supreme court sided with Tennessee in an order signed by justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal justices Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the court’s order “because its decision clears the way for the state to execute Pike before her still-pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered”.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, one of their classmates at Knoxville Job Corps in 1995.
The case garnered nationwide headlines due to the ages of those involved and the brutality of the murder.
after newsletter promotion
According to prosecutors, Pike was worried Slemmer was trying to take her then boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, away fom her. Together, they lured Slemmer into a wooded area behind the agriculture campus steam plant at the University of Tennessee on 12 January 1995. Pike cut Slemmer’s stomach and throat with a box cutter before smashing her head with a rock.
Shipp carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest and Pike later showed a friend a fragment of Slemmer’s skull.
Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Pike has never denied her involvement in Slemmer’s killing and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement that was included in her clemency petition.
On Saturday, May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, said she was waiting for Pike’s execution.
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez told the Associated Press, adding: “Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Read the full story at BBC ↗ · The Guardian ↗ · Al Jazeera ↗
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- Christa Pike, sentenced to death over 1995 murder, was heard snoring 40 minutes after lethal doses administered, witnesses said.
- Tennessee officials were unable to carry out the…