Death row inmate Christa Pike is speaking out one month after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, saying she remains in constant pain and had never contemplated a life beyond the night she expected to die.
Pike, 50, described her condition in a statement dictated to her legal team and released Friday.
“One month ago on September 30, I walked into the execution chamber at Riverbend men’s prison prepared to die,” Pike said. “I had made my peace.”
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Pike said she thanked those who had supported her through the years and told those who were there to witness her execution that she was “leaving them in loving kindness.”
“Several days later I woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain,” Pike said. “There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
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Pike said she had never considered what her life would look like if she survived the execution.
“I had not contemplated life beyond that night, and I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position,” she said. “I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured.”
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow participant in a federal Job Corps program in Knoxville.
Her statement comes two days after Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Pike remains incarcerated under state law and signaled that her death sentence is unlikely to change.
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Pike’s attorneys have called on Lee to commute her death sentence to life without parole after the failed execution.
Pike said Friday that she is recovering but remains in the infirmary at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been largely isolated from other people.
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“I am recovering, and I know that I am getting stronger,” Pike said. “But healing is not the same as being okay.”
“Since that night, I have been largely isolated in the prison’s medical ward, away from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me,” she continued. “That isolation brings its own kind of pain. I spent 28 years in solitary confinement and much of what I am experiencing today is a repeat of that condition.”
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Pike survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection on Sept. 30 after receiving two doses of pentobarbital and was rushed to a hospital.
She remained unconscious for days, and her attorneys at one point believed she was brain-dead and expected her to be taken off life support. Pike later regained consciousness and was discharged from the hospital before being returned to prison.
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Her attorneys subsequently said she was able to walk and speak in full sentences.
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Pike’s survival renewed a decades-long fight over her death sentence and whether Tennessee could attempt to execute her again.
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She was 18 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and 19-year-old Shadolla Peterson were charged in Slemmer’s killing. All four were participating in Job Corps at the time.
The three took Slemmer to a secluded area on the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus, where her throat was cut multiple times, she was struck in the head with a large piece of asphalt and a pentagram was carved into her chest.
Pike later confessed to her role in the killing. She was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996, and the Tennessee Supreme Court later affirmed her convictions and sentence.
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Following the failed execution, Lee halted Tennessee’s remaining executions for the year and ordered an independent review of what went wrong.
Pike said Friday that she is still trying to understand why she survived.
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“I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next,” she said. “Some days, finding hope is harder than others. For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time. And I am holding on to the love and kindness of so many people who have reminded me that I am not alone.”
