The statement was released a month after the Sept. 30 attempt. The governor ordered an independent investigation.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived a failed execution last month, said Friday that she remains in constant pain and struggles to speak, in her first public statement since the attempt.
The statement, released exactly one month after the Sept. 30 execution attempt, was dictated to her lawyers from the infirmary at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, the Associated Press reported. Pike, 50, said she has been in constant pain since she survived two doses of pentobarbital, and blamed the failure on “incompetence.” She said she entered the execution chamber having said her goodbyes and “had not contemplated life beyond that night.” She said she woke several days later alone in a hospital, confused and in pain.
“There is pain in my mind and in my soul,” Pike said. She said she thinks about her victim’s family and the pain and loss they have endured, is grateful for the medical staff who cared for her and for those who have shown kindness, and “don’t know what comes next.” Pike is the only person known to have survived an execution attempt in the United States.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee ordered a third-party investigation into the failure and ruled that a remaining state execution scheduled for this year will not go ahead. Pike was hospitalized after the attempt and later returned to prison. Her attorneys have said she was walking with help and eating.
A jury convicted Pike in 1996 of first-degree murder for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, 19, in Knoxville. Pike was 18 at the time. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Her lawyers had argued that her age, history of abuse and diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder should exempt her from execution.
This report draws on information from the Associated Press, CBS News and PBS NewsHour.