Christa Pike describes constant pain in first statement since her failed
execution
[October 31, 2026]
By KIM CHANDLER
Christa Pike said Friday she remains in constant pain, struggles to
speak and has been largely isolated in a prison hospital after surviving
a lethal injection in Tennessee last month.
In her first public statement since, Pike said she's “deeply hurt by the
incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position.”
“I continue to think about my victim’s family,” she said, “and the
terrible pain and loss they have endured.”
Pike and her boyfriend tortured and stabbed a 19-year-old classmate,
Colleen Slemmer, to death in 1995. Pike was 18 at the time, making her
one of the youngest women sentenced to death. Slemmer’s mother traveled
from Florida to witness Pike’s execution.
Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital that her lawyers say
probably didn't enter her bloodstream correctly and instead pooled in
her arms, leaving them burned and blistered. Unconscious, she was
hospitalized on a ventilator for days, and at one point her lawyers said
they didn't expect her to survive.
“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,” Pike said. “And the pain isn’t just physical.
There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Pike said she had been prepared to die in peace, but instead woke up
alone and confused in a hospital bed. She said she's “searching for
meaning in what happened to me.”
“I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next,”
Pike said in a statement dictated to her legal team from prison.
Pike remains sentenced to die, and her attorneys want Republican Gov.
Bill Lee to change that to life in prison. However, Lee told reporters
this week, “I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless
determined otherwise by the courts.”
The governor has tapped a former U.S. attorney to conduct an independent
review of the failed execution, and postponed the state’s other lethal
injection scheduled for this year.
Pike's attorneys, meanwhile, asked a federal judge Friday to allow her
to interact with other prisoners instead of being isolated in the
infirmary. They said her isolation violates a 2024 agreement that ended
her mostly solitary confinement and allowed her to work, eat, exercise
and have social contact with other women.
[to top of second column]
|
This photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows
Christa Pike on Jan. 12, 2023. (TDOC via AP)
“Her renewed isolation has caused, and will continue to cause,
significant psychological harm and trauma,” Pike's legal team wrote.
Pike's lethal injection was plagued by problems. Her attorneys had
warned that her small veins and diagnosis of thrombocytosis, a
blood-clotting disorder, could make IV access difficult.
In a court document, her attorney Randy Spivey said the execution
team struggled to get working IV lines in Pike’s arms and expressed
concern that a vein might be “blowing.” Pike remained awake for much
of the lethal injection, saying her arm hurt and burned before
falling unconscious. The execution began just before 7:30 p.m. and
an ambulance arrived at the prison about an hour and 45 minutes
later.
The failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee
carries out death sentences.
In a 2025 deposition released with court documents this week, prison
Warden Kenneth Nelson said the execution team doesn't practice
inserting IV lines during training sessions, at the directive of the
prison commissioner. Nelson said he did not know why the practice
was discontinued or when the order was given.
Practicing insertion of IVs was part of Tennessee’s prior execution
protocol, but it is not included in the state’s new protocol.
Dorinda Carter, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of
Correction, said she could not comment on the filing because of
pending litigation.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction,
announced his resignation in the wake of Pike's failed execution.
The governor named Christopher Hansen as interim commissioner.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
