Christa Pike was supposed to die Wednesday night. Instead, the Tennessee death row inmate reportedly laughed, sang a Buddhist meditation, and eventually snored so loudly that one witness compared it to someone having “the best sleep of her life,” all after prison officials administered two rounds of lethal injection drugs.
Pike, 50, was scheduled to be executed at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 torture and murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer. She would have been the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years.
But the execution was botched. WVLT anchor and senior reporter William Puckett, one of the media witnesses inside the prison, described a surreal scene to the Daily Mail. After the first injection, Pike remained conscious and began singing a traditional Buddhist meditation, repeating, “Be kind and gentle to yourself and may you be at peace.”
Then, Puckett said Pike let out “a joyous laugh and chuckle” while still on the gurney. At approximately 7:41 p.m., a rock was placed in view of witnesses — a signal that the drug had been fully administered. Pike spoke with her spiritual adviser shortly afterward, and at 7:46 p.m. the curtain separating the viewing room from the execution chamber was lowered.
Then witnesses heard her snoring. “It was like she was getting the best sleep of her life,” Puckett recalled. He described the sound as a “loud, deep in the back of the sinus cavity snore” resembling an old man sleeping.
The curtain was raised again three minutes later, and officials administered a second dose. Four minutes afterward, Pike’s body reportedly twitched abruptly and she gave a significant gasp for air. The rock was placed in view again at 8:01 p.m., and the curtain dropped at 8:05 p.m. But Pike kept snoring.
The sound reportedly continued for another 50 minutes as doctors and lawyers moved in and out of the execution chamber. Media witnesses were escorted from the area around 8:53 p.m., with Pike still apparently breathing.
She was ultimately taken to a hospital, where her attorneys said Thursday that she was in critical condition and receiving “life-saving medical care.” Her current prognosis was not immediately clear.
Pike’s lawyers have characterized the execution attempt very differently from the witness account of her apparent calmness at points during the procedure.
“The state of Tennessee has shown us again that they are not capable of carrying out an execution consistent with basic human dignity,” attorney Randy Spivey said Thursday. “Last night was not just inefficient; it was cruel, and it was torturous.”
Spivey said the execution team spent roughly an hour attempting to establish an IV and that he counted at least seven needles being used in Pike’s left arm. Her attorneys had previously warned that Pike’s medical condition and difficult-to-access veins could create complications during lethal injection. The Tennessee Department of Correction, however, said officials followed the state’s established execution protocol.
Tennessee already botched another execution this year. In May, officials abandoned an attempt to execute convicted murderer Tony Carruthers after they were unable to establish a backup IV line.
Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee has now halted scheduled executions in Tennessee through the end of the year and ordered a comprehensive, independent review of what happened.
“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities,” Lee said. “The people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective.”
Pike’s case is believed to be the first in the modern American death penalty era in which an inmate survived after execution drugs were actually administered. The Death Penalty Information Center said seven people had previously survived failed lethal-injection attempts, but those executions were stopped before the drugs could be successfully administered.
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