Christa Pike
Still Alive After Two Attempted Lethal Injections
Lawyers Say She’s ‘Snoring’
Published
Christa Pike is still alive after 2 attempted lethal injections in Tennessee.
Around 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring” … her lawyers said in a federal court filing, according to NBC News.
Pike was scheduled to be put to death Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Tennessee to carry out her execution … overturning a last-minute stay from a federal appeals court.
They said Pike “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat,” and that curtains to the death chamber “have gone down twice.”
As we previously reported … Pike’s execution was delayed earlier Wednesday when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the lethal injection just hours before it was scheduled to take place.
The Supreme Court later lifted the stay, allowing Tennessee officials to proceed.
Pike’s attorneys had fought to spare her life … arguing that jurors who sentenced her to death were not presented with the full extent of her childhood sexual abuse, trauma and mental-health history.
Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. Pike was 18 when Slemmer was killed.
