Christa Pike Discharged From Hospital After Failed Execution

Convicted murderer Christa Pike has returned to prison and is recovering from her failed execution, according to a statement from her attorneys.

Pike, 50, was discharged from the hospital and sent back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, Tennessee, her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, Kelly Gleason, Luke Ihnen, and Randy Spivey, said in a statement Saturday.

“Christa Pike was discharged from a local hospital and is now at Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center where she has been housed for more than 30 years,” her attorneys said in the statement. “She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery.”

Pike, who tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995, had been in the hospital since September 30 after a botched execution. She is the first known person to survive after execution drugs were actually administered, according to a statement by the Death Penalty Information Center.

The state previously confirmed there is no pending order for another execution attempt, but the possibility is still on the table, The Daily Wire reported.

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, said she did not “get justice for my daughter” after the failed execution, The Daily Wire previously reported.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Martinez told WBIR when asked if she thought Pike would ever be executed. “They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”

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.

Pike and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp were convicted in 1996 of killing Slemmer after inviting her into the woods near Knoxville and torturing her with a box cutter and a meat cleaver. Pike killed her by dropping a piece of asphalt on her head. The pair also carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s forehead and chest, according to court documents.

Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull and was arrested after showing it off to others. She was 18 at the time of the murder, and her death sentence made her the youngest woman condemned in Tennessee since the modern death penalty era began, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.