Christa Pike was moments into her execution when she reportedly asked a chilling question that suggested something was seriously wrong.
“My arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” Pike said at around 7:34 p.m., according to WKRN journalist Tori Gessner, who witnessed the execution.
Pike then reportedly asked: “Does this happen like that?”
Did not go as expected
What followed was a chaotic execution that lasted for more than two hours, with witnesses later reporting that Pike appeared to remain alive long after the lethal injection process began.
The Tennessee death row inmate was ultimately taken by ambulance to a hospital, although her medical condition was not immediately known.
Christa Pike, 50, had been scheduled to be executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She had spent roughly three decades on death row.
The execution had already been thrown into uncertainty earlier that day when a federal appeals court temporarily halted it while reviewing arguments from Pike’s lawyers concerning her history of childhood abuse and neglect.
The U.S. Supreme Court later vacated that stay, allowing Tennessee to proceed.
But the execution itself did not go as expected.
According to media witnesses, the first round of lethal injection drugs was administered after the execution chamber curtain opened at 7:26 p.m. Pike was still making movements and sounds afterward, with witnesses describing her blinking, smiling and even laughing at points during the process.
”Nothing about today was normal”
Gessner, who said she had witnessed five previous executions in Tennessee, described the scene as anything but routine.
“Nothing about today was normal, typical at all, and the court delay was just the tip of the iceberg,” Tori Gessner told WKRN News 2.
WVLT Knoxville reporter Will Puckett also witnessed the execution and described Pike making a series of movements as the procedure continued.
“I saw a tear roll down (from) her right eye,” Puckett said, adding that Pike then complained that “one spot is really throbbing.”
Puckett later said Pike began speaking less and taking deep breaths. At one point, she lifted her head, while her feet moved so frequently that she was “knocking the sheet that laid over her off.”
The curtain was eventually closed, but witnesses said they could still hear Pike making what sounded like snoring noises. According to reporters present, those sounds continued for an extended period.
Steven Hale of the Nashville Banner said the lack of visibility made it difficult for witnesses to understand exactly what was happening, according to Tennessee Lookout.
Second round of injections
“I cannot emphasize enough how much of whatever just happened, happened behind a closed curtain,” Hale said. “When Christa Pike was still alive, we could still hear her breathing, but we could not see what was going on.”
Witnesses were eventually escorted from the building at around 8:53 p.m., roughly two hours after entering the witness chamber.
An ambulance was then seen leaving Riverbend with its lights on, and Pike was transported to an off-site medical facility.
The Tennessee Department of Correction later said it had followed the state’s established execution protocol.
“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” Communications Director Dorinda Carter said.
“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective,” she added, saying Pike had been transported to an off-site medical facility.
The state’s protocol calls for a second round of injections if an inmate has not been determined to be dead following the first round. However, it does not specify what should happen if the second round also fails.
An anti-death penalty organization filed an emergency motion seeking to halt the execution and have Pike receive immediate medical treatment. Pike’s attorneys also filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty said the state had failed to carry out the execution as intended.
“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” Pike’s attorneys said in a statement.
Pike’s final statement before the lethal injection had struck a very different tone. According to AP reporter Kim Chandler, she said she was “going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love.”
She also said she had love for “the people who were out here hating on her.”
Chandler reported that Pike ended her statement by saying, “I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free,” before concluding: “This is a happy day.”
Pike’s execution was the latest in a series of troubled executions in Tennessee. In May, the execution of Tony Von Carruthers was called off after difficulties inserting intravenous lines delayed the procedure for more than an hour.
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