Expert warns Christa Pike could face ‘prolonged and agonizing death’ as her execution date approaches.
As Christa Pike’s execution date approaches, an expert has issued a stark warning about the method that will be used to put her to death, with her own lawyers also pressing that her medical condition increases the risk of something going wrong.
Pike, now 49, was convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Tennessee.
She was 18 at the time and believed Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend. The killing was brutal and the victim beaten and bludgeoned.
Pike was sentenced to death the following year and has been on death row for over three decades. She is also serving time for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate in 2004.
Her upcoming execution will be the first time a female death row inmate has been executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
A method that goes ‘wrong more than any other method’
Pike will be executed by lethal injection — a method that Matt Wells, Deputy Director of Reprieve US, describes as one that “goes wrong more than any other method.”
Wells pointed to the execution of Tony Carruthers just two months ago, when prison staff spent over an hour stabbing him with needles more than a dozen times trying to establish an IV line before the execution had to be halted.
The incident was widely described as barbaric.
“This is not an isolated incident,” Wells told UNILAD.
“Our research showed that more than a quarter of botched lethal injections in the modern era lasted over an hour. The fact that Tennessee is doubling down on this broken execution method, so soon after torturing a man in the chamber, is beyond belief. There is a high risk that Christa Pike could suffer a prolonged and agonizing death.”
He also alleged that US states actively work to conceal information about executions to maintain the public perception that lethal injection is humane.
“The reality is there is no such thing,” he said.
Her medical condition adds another layer of risk
Pike’s attorney Stephen Ferrell has raised additional concerns specific to his client. Pike has thrombocytopenia, a blood condition that leads to excessive bleeding, and small veins that make establishing an IV line difficult even for experienced medical professionals.
“The difficulty establishing IV lines is a known complication that has caused prolonged and botched executions for years,” Ferrell said.
Her legal team has requested that a special master be appointed to evaluate whether her execution would be constitutional. Shelby County Senior Judge Mark Ward has since been appointed to that role and will assess whether Pike is likely to endure excessive pain during the procedure.
Public records also indicate that Pike had a difficult childhood that included abuse and neglect with attorneys describing her as having suffered physical and sexual abuse by men while growing up.
Courts have generally acknowledged that she had a traumatic upbringing, though that has not changed her death sentence.
She is scheduled to have the execution carried out by an all-male team, which her lawyers argue would inflict excessive psychological pain on top of the other concerns regarding the method of execution.
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