Pike’s lawyers say she was heard snoring and remained breathing after two injections

NEED TO KNOW

Christa Gail Pike is still alive after the state of Tennessee attempted to execute her by lethal injection on Wednesday, Sept. 30, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the execution to go forward, her lawyers said.

The Tennessee Department of Correction proceeded with the execution by lethal injection at approximately 8:48 p.m. CT, The Tennessseean reported. However, the injection failed, resulting in Pike requiring prompt medical attention, her attorneys say.

Kelly Gleason, an attorney for Pike, told The Tennessean that she was informed by her colleague, Randy Spivey, that Pike, 50, was still alive. Spivey was in the death chamber with Pike, but stepped out to call Gleason, she told the outlet.

“She’s alive and snoring,” Gleason told The Tennessean. “She needs immediate medical care.”

Attorney Amy Harwell is now driving to file an emergency motion at the Tennessee Supreme Court, Gleason told The Tennessean.

Authorities appeared to administer two doses of pentobarbital, but she was still awake over 40 minutes after the last dose, the Associated Press reported. At 8:53 p.m., the media witnesses were escorted out of the prison. A Tennessee Department of Corrections spokesperson told media witnesses she couldn’t provide immediate information about the botched execution.

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Execution witnesses and members of the media remained at the prison awaiting a decision, the Associated Press reported.

Pike was originally scheduled to receive a lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at 10 a.m. CDT, or 11 a.m. EDT.

Kelley Henry, chief of the capital habeas unit in the Federal Public Defender’s Office, said the Tennessee Supreme Court would have to set another execution date if Pike was not put to death by the end of Wednesday, according to The Tennessean. Henry is not involved in Pike’s case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit halted Pike’s execution in a 2-1 decision about an hour before it was scheduled to begin on Wednesday. The court said it needed time to determine whether Pike’s latest filing, in which she asked the court to consider her history of childhood sexual abuse, should return to federal district court or be treated as a second habeas petition subject to strict legal limits.

Tennessee immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the stay, and the justices decided 6-3 that the execution could go as planned. The state argued that the Sixth Circuit had granted relief Pike did not request without determining that she was likely to prevail on the merits.

Pike was sentenced to death for the January 1995 murder of fellow Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 and Slemmer was 19 when Pike, Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson lured Slemmer to a wooded area, where Pike and Shipp attacked and killed her while Peterson acted as a lookout, according to the AP and court documents.

Pike would have been the first woman put to death by Tennessee in at least 200 years.

Following the failed execution, attorneys for Pike filed an emergency motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee to intervene and issue a stay, the Tennessean reported.