Doctor who oversaw Christa Pikes botched execution says she still deserves to die, compares himself to Jesus

The doctor who oversaw Christa Pike’s botched execution compared himself to Jesus, still wants her put to death, and said in his first public comments since the fiasco that he’s willing to finish the job himself.Dr.Mark Fowler, a 69-year-old grandfather and Bible school teacher studying at seminary, said he believes Pike deserves to die for the brutal 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, he told New York Magazine.For two reasons.

One, because it would bring “a sense of justice” to her victim’s mother, who was present at the execution attempt.And two, because he there’s “no doubt” in his mind that the inmates he has personally helped put to death deserved their punishment. “There are times when you have to draw a line and say, ‘You have traversed socially acceptable norms and we must extract from you the ultimate penalty,” Fowler told the news outlet.Fowler, whose role during Pike’s execution was to wait in a death chamber anteroom and then pronounce her dead, has taken part in seven executions at $3,000 a job — and believes carrying out the death sentence is a moral obligation.“How can you morally say, ‘I’m for the death penalty so long as someone else does the work?'” he said.“I do things that nobody wants to do.”On Sept.

30, Fowler was waiting when prison officials called him into the death chamber where Pike was still breathing after two doses of the lethal drug phenobarbital.He said he knew something was wrong because it had been 45 minutes since the start of the procedure, which usually takes about 10 minutes.“She’s not dead,” the warden told him.Fowler thought it was just a matter of time until she succumbed to the drug.He gave it another half hour.But at that point, Pike, 50, remained comatose, the deputy commissioner ordered the execution to stop, and Fowler was forced to arrange emergency treatment to save her life.Investigators later determined that Pike’s IV lines had been improperly p...