Christa Pike is "up and walking" while in hospital after last week's botched attempt to execute her in the US state of Tennessee, a member of her legal team says. Pike, 50, who was sentenced to death after murdering Colleen Slemmer with her then-boyfriend in 1995, survived two lethal injections on 30 September. Experts described it as unprecedented.
Speaking late on Wednesday to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, lawyer Stephen Ferrell said he had not spoken to Pike directly but that he had learned she was moving around her hospital room for the first time while still being mentally "foggy". Earlier, a court ordered the state of Tennessee to preserve all evidence related to the failed execution. That evidence could lay the groundwork for a future lawsuit against the state.
The Pike case is now in uncharted territory, as Pike is believed to be the only person to have survived an execution attempt by lethal injection. The failed execution was branded a "mess" by the mother of Slemmer, who was among those pushing for Pike to be put to death. Pike's boyfriend at the time of Slemmer's gruesome murder, Tadaryl Shipp, was spared the death penalty because he was not legally an adult when the crime was committed.
Pike was 18 and Shipp was 17 when they beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teens. How did Christa Pike survive two lethal injections? In their updates on Pike's condition after the attempted execution, her team had previously said she was awake and speaking, and experiencing anger and confusion.
She was said at that stage to be handcuffed to her bed. In the latest updates, given to the BBC, Ferrell said Pike was continuing to experience the after-effects of the drug pentobarbital, which was injected into her body in two doses by prison staff during the scheduled execution on 30 September. Once it became clear that Pike was not going to die, she was taken to hospital, where she was initially unconscious and declared to have be in a critical condition.
As of late on Tuesday, though, she was "fairly well", Ferrell told the BBC. "What's been described to me is that physically there's quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured and she's not able to use them very much." Of her physical movements, he added: "She is up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far." Turning to her mental state, he said: "I think it's kind of good and bad. Good that she is fairly with it, but she's also somewhat foggy.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
