Photo Courtesy of Tennessee Department of Correction
By Morgan Rudowicz
Christa Pike is a 50-year-old who became the first woman in 200 years to be on Tennessee death row. Pike was sentenced to life in jail with no parole after being convicted at 18 because she and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, murdered their fellow schoolmate.
Pike’s story drew national attention because of the unusual circumstances. Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl, were known as Satanists and were found wearing pentagrams at the scene of her murder. When their schoolmate was found, there were severe injuries and carvings in her chest and face.
According to Erik Ortiz at ABC News, “Pike told police that she ‘wasn’t even thinking’ when she assaulted Slemmer and that she had been jealous, believing the victim was trying to steal Shipp’s attention.”
Going into the execution, the lethal injection they give is normally supposed to knock the individual out right away. But after a failed attempt earlier in May with a man who was sentenced to execution, the court did not exactly know what was going to happen.
When the correctional officers first injected the lethal injection into her, she was snoring, gasping, and complaining about her arm hurting, which is not a normal side effect of lethal injection. Lethal injection normally causes the inmate’s heart to just go into cardiac arrest and to stop. The journalists in the room were not allowed to look at her while this was happening as the scene was too intense, so they could only imagine what was happening behind the curtains.
Kim Chandler and Kristin M. Hall, Associated Press journalists, claimed Pike’s attorney said, “Spivey called the process cruel and torturous, saying he was ‘haunted’ by watching and hearing Pike talking, singing, and then snoring loudly during her more than 90 minutes in the death chamber. Her attorneys also said it was unclear if she might have suffered brain damage from being deprived of oxygen.”
Pike was then sent to the hospital after two failed attempts at the injection and went into further investigation. The judges then had to rethink their choices of what the next moves were, and this may now need to go up to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
In the state of Tennessee, the court is no longer allowed to seek lethal injection if the inmate does not understand or cannot comprehend what has happened. Pike was left mentally impaired after the failed attempts.
The court may have to put Pike on a life sentence with no parole. Putting her on another death sentence may cause another court hearing. The state of Tennessee is not allowed to execute individuals with intellectual disabilities.
Michael Ruiz, a reporter from Fox News, said, “In the meantime, Pike has been released from the hospital and is back in prison after what her attorneys described as a ‘remarkable’ physical recovery. She is the only known person to survive a lethal injection attempt in the modern era.”
More updates are to come, as Pike is still in active recovery from the execution failure. For now, it is uncertain whether she will serve a life sentence or if the state of Tennessee will put her back on death row.