Convicted Tennessee killer Christa Pike is hospitalized in critical condition a day after two botched lethal injection attempts in connection with the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her attorneys said Thursday."Christa is alive right now," Randy Spivey, one of her lawyers, told reporters in a news briefing delivered over Zoom Thursday afternoon."We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment."Due to limited information and HIPAA rules, he said he couldn't go into specific details."She is in critical condition receiving lifesaving care, that is the extent that we have at the moment," he said.TENNESSEE DEATH ROW INMATE SURVIVES 2 LETHAL INJECTION DOSES IN FAILED EXECUTION ATTEMPTChrista Gail Pike is seen during her trial for the murder of Colleen A.
Slemmer March 18, 1996, in Knox County Criminal Court.(USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)Another of her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, said it appears that the needle "either became dislodged or pierced all the way through the veins," and the injection was not properly administered, but specific medical details were not available due to HIPAA rules.Pike, now 50, was the 18-year-old orchestrator of the torture and murder of Slemmer, a classmate and perceived romantic rival.
She was supposed to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years Wednesday evening after the U.S.Supreme Court overturned an emergency stay of execution.She received two injections at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Neither proved lethal."I'm haunted by last night," Spivey told reporters in a news briefing delivered over Zoom.THREE DEATH ROW INMATES EXECUTED BY LETHAL INJECTION IN RARE SAME-DAY STRING ACROSS USAn undated portrait photograph of Colleen Slemmer provided by her mother.(May Martinez/Special to the News Sentinel)Pike remained awake and at one point raised her head, asking prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel that way.
Witnesses reporte...