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https://www.nairaland.com/8753279/christa-pike-american-woman-death

Tennessee Department of Corrections
Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike has been taken to hospital after her heart was still beating following two lethal injections during her execution, her lawyer says.

Her legal team filed an emergency motion to halt the convicted murderer's execution as it was happening, saying: "Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring."

One of her attorneys told the BBC that Pike, 50, was "being provided life-saving measures" in hospital after two syringes of pentobarbital had been administered.

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

The attempted execution took place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at about 20:00 local time on Wednesday night.

Pike was given two doses of pentobarbital, and the curtain in the witness room was closed twice, the Associated Press reports.


Media were at some point asked to leave, the news agency said.

Family handout Student Colleen Slemmer was tortured and brutally killed in the 1995 murder

Pike's legal team said in a statement to the Tennessean newspaper: "Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution.

"We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."

Pike's lawyers filed an emergency motion to stay her execution and administer medical care after the lethal injection was apparently botched.

District Judge Clifton L Corker issued a ruling noting that "medical personnel have begun to administer medical care as requested in the motion".

The Tennessee Department of Correction has said it stands by all the actions it took during the attempted execution.

"The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office," department spokesperson Dorinda Carter told the Tennessean newspaper.

"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," she said.

Dr Joel Zivot, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine who told the BBC he had been retained by Pike's legal team as a medical expert, said she likely never achieved a sufficient blood level of pentobarbital to cause apnoea and cardiovascular failure during the attempted execution.

"It's very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury," Zivot said in an email.


The capital punishment went ahead after the US Supreme Court overturned a reprieve granted by a lower court on Wednesday morning. It was the second time in as many days that the justices gave the go-ahead for Pike's death by lethal injection.

In a ruling earlier in the day, judges from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit paused the execution saying they needed more time to consider the arguments in Pike's case.

Her lawyers had argued the jury did not get the chance to weigh mitigating evidence of Pike's documented history of childhood sexual abuse, before they sentenced her to death in 1996.

The defence said that for years, the state of Tennessee had argued in court that she lied about being sexually abused as a child.

But at a recent hearing about her execution method, the state said it did not dispute that she had suffered sexual abuse and rape.

Tennessee's governor denied a clemency request this week from Pike, the only woman on the state's death row.

J. Miles Carey/USA TODAY/Imagn Images via Reuters May Martinez, mother of Colleen Slemmer, and a retired Knoxville Police department detective outside a courtroom for a post-conviction hearing in 2006
May Martinez, mother of Colleen Slemmer, outside a court hearing in 2006
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teens.

In her clemency petition, Pike said that she intended to beat Slemmer, not kill her, but that she was unable to "put the brakes on".

"I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid," she said in a statement. "It took me numerous years to even realise 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."

The murder in 1995 created a media frenzy in Knoxville, Tennessee, after Colleen was found with an inverted pentagram - a symbol that is associated with satanic groups - carved into her chest. Pike has denied carving the symbol herself.

Before the killing, Pike had accused Colleen of insulting her and trying to steal her then-boyfriend.

Two other residents at the camp later testified that Pike had bragged about the murder before and after, and showed them a piece of Colleen's skull.

Colleen Slemmer's mother had said she wanted the execution to take place, telling the Associated Press she had waited decades to see Pike's sentence carried out.

"Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run," May Martinez told the agency on Saturday.

She said a group helped raise funds for her and her husband to travel from Florida to Tennessee to witness the execution.


"Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst," Martinez said.

Since 1976, when the Supreme Court resumed the death penalty, only 18 women have been executed in the US, compared to 1,663 men. That's about 1% of all US executions.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8r6rjdvlx6o

If the U.S fumbled this woman's execution, they will be setting a precedent that will be exploited by future death row inmates.
Let them aside the fact that she's a woman and do the needful, before Nancy clancy will be up next.

Death by lethal injection seems humane....

She would have be electrocuted for a quicker but painful death.

I told them to use sniper, dem no hear.

Seewahala now!!

Una never kee this unrepentant murderer finish?

I doubt she was actually injected lethally. Her escape was well planned through this means.
If she is remorseful and truly a changed person, let her receive clemency and walks free again thereafter.

Happy Independence day to Nigeria.. Nigerians are neither Happy nor independent

This kind of execution is like dying in your sleep. You don’t feel any pain at all.

judewrites:


Death by lethal injection seems humane....

She would have be electrocuted for a quicker but painful death.

A shot to the head would be quicker and painless since the brain can feel nothing.

Something is fishy though. If I am a governor, people on d€ath row won't get extra one day.

Honestly this world is confused

What a life and moment. May her soul be comforted

Who murder pass US? I swear justice no dey exist if we want really dey honest ... But honesty is another phantom hehe...

Make Dem use fentanyl abeg

Sheuns:
A shot to the head would be quicker and painless since the brain can feel nothing.

In the USA, they execute death row prisoners by aiming to the heart not the head.

The woman strong ooo 2 injections and still breathing.


Alaba international fit open today?

What in the name of MAGA is this?

Fake, leave all those people alone they don't want to kill her. When I read about what she did to her victim, I wish she was sentenced to death by firing squad. Maybe there's a strong hand trying to get her out.

If lethal injection no work, there are other effective methods na
Or should I list them here so this Nairaland bot will ban me again

She have to pay for her sins, I expected her dead before October 1st

This is funny. You want to kill someone, she survive, you now rush her to hospital.
Like shooting someone severally and you now take him to hospital because he survived all gun shots.
What if she survive execution by guillotine, and you hack and hack but the head no cut off, na hospital una go still rush am for treatment.

Bwilliam:
If the U.S fumbled this woman's execution, they will be setting a precedent that will be exploited by future death row inmates.
Let them aside the fact that she's a woman and do the needful, before Nancy clancy will be up next.

You think this is the first botched execution in American history?

Here we go another hypocrisy andlies .. these oyibo people ehn

EdiskyHarry:
Fake, leave all those people alone they don't want to kill her. When I read about what she did to her victim, I wish she was sentenced to death by firing squad. Maybe there's a strong hand trying to get her out.

if it was to be a man now, they would have killed him before now

Bwilliam:
If the U.S fumbled this woman's execution, they will be setting a precedent that will be exploited by future death row inmates.
Let them aside the fact that she's a woman and do the needful, before Nancy clancy will be up next.

Nothing will happen .. the world is filled with hypocrites..

Person wey una wan kee naim una dey rush go hospital

To save her from killing her

I no understand o!

Firing squad and the gallows remains the most efficient, electric chair and gas chamber are also good, Nigeria need these types of execution methods for violent crimes like kidnapping, terrorism, armed robbery, ritual killing, rape of minors and public fund looting above 1billion Naira

Bwilliam:
If the U.S fumbled this woman's execution, they will be setting a precedent that will be exploited by future death row inmates.
Let them aside the fact that she's a woman and do the needful, before Nancy clancy will be up next.

Since she regrets her actions, why waste her life?

why not engage her in something useful to the society?

Something three bullet to her head would have settled once and for all ....

It appears they didn't even have any intention to execute her...If not, why all the drama?

I won't be surprised if she was given fake doses of lethal injection. Who can confirm what was inside those syringes that was injected inside her?

America and their eye service propaganda abi wetin make I call this one laikdz. Just kill the woman already and spare us emotional headlines. Dem dey survive death row

Y not use our beloved AK 47