Strapped to a gurney and minutes from death, convicted killer Christa Pike started to sing before the botched execution that the victim’s mother called “a mess.”
Behind the glass at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Sept. 30, witnesses watched as Christa Pike, 50, lay beneath a sheet with an IV running into her arm, waiting for the lethal drugs that were supposed to kill her.
But before the execution got underway, another sound drifted from the chamber. Pike was singing with her spiritual advisor, unaware that that by the end of the day, she’d be receiving “life-saving measures.”
Death of Collen Slemmer
More than three decades earlier, Pike had been sentenced to death for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
On Jan. 12, 1995, Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, attacked 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer after luring her to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus in Knoxville.
The teenagers knew each other through the Knoxville Job Corps, where Pike had become convinced that Slemmer was interested in Shipp, according to USA Today.
Slemmer was beaten, cut and killed during a prolonged attack, while another teenager, Shadolla Peterson, was also present. Shipp carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, and Pike kept a piece of her victim’s skull as a souvenir, later showing it to students.
Death row sentence
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, making her the youngest woman sent to Tennessee’s death row.
Shipp, who was 17 when Slemmer was killed and therefore ineligible for the death penalty, received a life sentence. Peterson testified against the pair and received probation.
A jury convicted Pike of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, sentencing her to death. Shipp received a life sentence, while Peterson testified for prosecutors and received probation.
‘I’m trying’
About 31 years later, and 10 days after what would have been Slemmer’s 50th birthday, Tennessee prepared to carry out Pike’s sentence.
She was originally scheduled to die at 10 a.m. on Sept. 30, but hours of legal maneuvering pushed the execution into the evening before the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the state to proceed.
Witnesses entered the viewing area shortly after 6:30 p.m., but another wait followed before the curtain finally opened at 7:27 p.m.
Pike lay on the gurney with an IV in her right arm. She coughed, spoke with Rev. Mikey Noechel, her spiritual advisor, and delivered her final statement before the lethal injection got underway, Fox5 reports.
Within minutes, however, witnesses could see that the execution was not proceeding as expected.
“The vein in my arm feels like it’s about to bust,” she said, according to the Nashville Banner.
“Does it happen like that?” she asked her advisor.
After Noechel asked her to “relax,” she smiled, laughed and replied “I’m trying,” as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Failed execution
Her breathing soon became impossible to ignore. Witnesses described several deep breaths powerful enough to lift the killer’s body from the gurney, while at one point she raised her head and looked toward her arm. Her feet also moved enough to knock away the sheet covering her.
The curtain came down briefly before reopening, but Pike was still breathing, with witnesses reporting loud snoring, gasps and further movement from the gurney.
Minutes after a huge yawn, officials closed the curtain again. This time it stayed shut, although witnesses said Pike could still be heard snoring from the other side.
Almost two hours later, the microphone was switched off, and witnesses were told to leave.
By then, two syringes of pentobarbital had been used in the attempt to execute Pike.
‘It was a mess’
Her attorney later told the BBC that she was taken to an off-site medical facility where she was receiving “life-saving measures.”
“They went to try to execute her, and she didn’t die,” Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, told NBC News. “They didn’t say anything, and then, all of a sudden, they asked all the victims to leave.”
Martinez and her husband, Raul, who were watching from behind the glass, added, “It was a mess.”
NBC reports the grieving parents were furious over the botched execution.
“This b**** will haunt Colleen’s heavenly journey until she’s been wiped off the face of the earth,” Raul vented in a Facebook post. “She is now in a local hospital locked up with chains and 2 armed guards and nothing can be done until the b**** croaks…right now I am not a happy camper.”
Pike sings before injection
While Slemmer’s family raged over an execution that had left Pike alive and receiving treatment in a hospital, the condemned killer had appeared remarkably calm as she prepared to die just hours earlier.
Before the gasps, the snoring and the desperate movements on the gurney, the death chamber had sounded very different.
With her spiritual advisor at her side and believing she was living through her final moments, a haunting refrain was heard from Pike, who was singing inside the execution chamber.
“I love you,” she sang with her advisor.
What do you think about doctors providing life-saving treatment to a death row prisoner after an execution attempt fails? Before passing this story along, please let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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