Christa Pike asked that the money intended to fund her final meal prior to her execution instead be spent on buying pizza for the homeless in Nashville, Tennessee.
As per tradition, the State of Tennessee offered Pike — condemned to die by lethal injection – a last meal ahead of her scheduled execution last Wednesday, September 30.
It was reported not long after that Pike had turned down the opportunity to eat at the State’s expense, and the New York Times have now revealed what she wished to do with the $20 dollars set aside to finance the meal.
They say that Pike told authorities to buy pizza for homeless people living on the streets of downtown Nashville, deciding to face her death without a custom meal in her belly.
Of course, as readers are surely aware by now, Pike’s execution devolved into relative chaos.
Initially scheduled for 10:00am local time, the execution was halted as the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals wished to review ongoing legal challenges raised by Pike’s defense team.
The stay lasted for approximately eight hours. The State of Tennessee immediately appealed the delay, and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately overturned the lower court’s stay, clearing the way for the execution to proceed later that evening.
However, the execution failed after Pike was administered two full doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital. Instead of dying, she remained alive, audibly snoring, and breathing for over an hour, prompting officials to ultimately call off the attempt and rush her to a hospital, where she was placed on a ventilator.
At the time of writing, she remains unconscious and intubated.
Whether the State of Tennessee can attempt to execute her again could be determined by the state of Pike’s mind if and when she recovers.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled that a prisoner sentenced to die must have the cognitive abilities to possess a “rational understanding” of why they’re being executed, but at present there’s no way of knowing to what extent Pike’s faculties may have been damaged by her botched execution.
Pike was sentenced to death 30 years ago after being convicted of the torture and murder of Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
Read more:
