This photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Corrections shows Christa Pike on January 12, 2023.
Tennessee Department of Correction/AP
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Tennessee Department of Correction/AP
Christa Pike has been released from a local hospital and is back in prison at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Tennessee, her attorneys Luke Ihnen, Randy Spivey, Stephen Ferrell and Kelly Gleason said in a statement Saturday.
“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for the care provided under these extraordinary circumstances,” the attorneys said.
They also said Pike was receiving medical treatment at the prison and they were monitoring his recovery.
Pike had been hospitalized for several days following her botched execution last month, during which she received and survived two doses of the sedative pentobarbital.
NPR reported on the September 30 execution attempt, during which Pike was strapped to a gurney and administered the barbiturate normally used in executions in the United States. Shortly after administering the first dose, Pike said his arm was burning and asked if it was supposed to feel like that. She then said, “Please try my shoulder higher.” »
Spivey, who witnessed the attempted execution, previously told NPR that after a second dose, Pike lost consciousness but continued to breathe and make choking noises. “It lasted so long,” he said. He called Pike a “survivor.”
Judge I’Ashea Myles of Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville ordered prison officials to preserve all evidence, such as messages, related to Pike’s failed execution.
Pike was on death row for a murder she committed when she was 18 years old. In 1995, she and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate in the Knoxville Job Corps. Shipp was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his role in the murder.
NPR’s Scott Neuman contributed to this report.
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