Christa Pike is reportedly receiving life-saving treatment at a hospital after her scheduled execution went seriously wrong.
The 50-year-old had spent 30 years on death row and was due to be executed by lethal injection on September 30. Instead, Pike reportedly remained alive after receiving two doses of pentobarbital.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of fellow student Colleen Slemmer, a crime she committed when she was 18. Had the execution gone ahead as planned, she would have become the first woman put to death by Tennessee in more than 200 years.
The execution had already faced a dramatic legal battle. An appeals court issued a stay just hours before Pike was due to receive the lethal injection, only for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision later that day.
But the biggest development came during the execution itself.
According to media witnesses watching from a separate room, the curtains to the execution chamber were opened at around 7:27 p.m., revealing Pike strapped to a gurney.
She was reportedly still awake and at one point lifted her head and asked prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did. It was not immediately clear what she was referring to.
By 8:26 p.m., witnesses reported that Pike had been given a second dose of pentobarbital.
She could reportedly still be heard snoring behind the closed curtain before the microphone was switched off at around 8:53 p.m. Witnesses were then told to leave the area.
“My arm feels like it’s about to burst open”
In her final statement, Pike said she was “going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love,” according to AP reporter Kim Chandler. She added that she had love for “the people who were out here hating on her.”
Chandler said Pike ended her statement by saying, “I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free,” before talking about celebrating her freedom and concluding, “This is a happy day.”
At 7:34 p.m., Gessner reported that Pike said, “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.”
WVLT Knoxville reporter Will Puckett said Pike was seen blinking and smiling, and even letting out “a couple of laughs during this process.”
“I saw a tear roll down (from) her right eye,” Puckett said, adding that Pike then complained that “one spot is really throbbing.”
As the execution continued, Pike began speaking less frequently and taking deep breaths. At 7:39 p.m., she lifted her head, while Puckett observed that Pike “was kicking her feet so often that she was actually knocking the sheet that laid over her off.”
Pike was eventually taken to an off-site medical facility, where one of her attorneys told BBC News she was being given ”life-saving measures.”
The extraordinary turn of events has now prompted Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to order an investigation into exactly what happened.
Lee said he had ordered a ”comprehensive, third-party review” and announced that no scheduled executions would take place in Tennessee for the remainder of the year.
”Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities,” Lee said, adding that Tennessee residents expect executions to be carried out in a way that is “legal and constitutional” as well as effective.
The decision also affects Gary Wayne Sutton, whose execution had been scheduled for December 3.
Meanwhile, the Tennessee Department of Correction has maintained that its officials followed the state’s approved procedures.
Department spokesperson Dorinda Carter said the agency “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”
She also said the drug used in the lethal injection had “consistently been effective” and that the protocol did not permit officials to take additional steps beyond those already carried out.
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