Christa Pike, the woman who was convicted of the 1995 torture and killing of her classmate, has broken her silence for the first time since the botched execution attempt in Tennessee last month.
In a statement dictated to her lawyers and released on Friday, Pike said she has been in constant pain and doesn’t know why she survived that night.
“One month ago on September 30, I walked into the execution chamber at Riverbend men’s prison prepared to die. I had made my peace. Several days later I woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain,” the statement read.
“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul,” she said in the statement.
“I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next,” Pike added. “Some days, finding hope is harder than others. For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time.”
Pike, 50, was given two doses of lethal injection drugs on September 30, but somehow managed to survive. She was hospitalized immediately after the execution attempt, and it was initially unclear whether she would regain consciousness. Within a week, Pike was awake and speaking.
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She is the first known person to survive after execution drugs were actually administered, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Pike was sentenced to death for her role in the 1995 torture and murder of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Pike, then 18, along with her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and friend Marissa Barr, repeatedly beat and cut Slemmer, carving a pentagram into her chest.
Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee paused all executions in the state until the end of the year and ordered an investigation into the failed attempt. A judge has ordered the state to preserve all evidence related to the botched execution.
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who is running for governor, has called for Tennessee to move away from lethal injection and start using the electric chair as the primary method of execution.
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