Christa Pike (Image: Tennessee Department of Correction/AFP via Getty Images)
Christa Pike has released her first statement since surviving her execution in September. The convicted murderer was meant to die by lethal execution on September 30. However, after being given two doses of lethal drug pentobarbital, she remained alive, and was taken to hospital. A few days later, she woke up in a hospital bed “confused and in pain”, she said in a newly released statement today.
In a statement dictated to her legal team, Pike said she had made peace with the fact she would be executed and die a month ago. She said: “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. I had told the people who loved me, supported me and stood by me through the years I was grateful for them. I had also told the people in the room and who were there to witness my execution that I was leaving them in loving kindness.”
However, the inmate said, she woke up days after she was meant to have died in a hospital room. Describing the first moments she regained consciousness after the botched execution attempt, she said: “Several days later I woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain.”
Photographs of Colleen Slemmer who was murdered in 1995 (Image: AP)
She went on to describe her current health conditions, saying: “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.”
Pike said she had “not contemplated life beyond that night”, adding she is “deeply hurt”. She said: “I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured. I am recovering, and I know that I am getting stronger. But healing is not the same as being okay.”
The inmate then described her current living conditions, saying that after spending 28 years in solitary confinement she has been “largely isolated in the prison’s medical ward, away from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me”.
She added: “I am searching for meaning in what happened to me. One thing that has given me strength is the extraordinary love and support I have received from people around the world. I am overwhelmed by the kindness and prayers of people I have known for years and complete strangers who have never met me.
“To know that so many people care about me, that they see me as a human being whose life matters, is something I cannot fully put into words. It is humbling, and it has touched me more deeply than I can explain.
“I also want to thank the first responders, doctors, nurses and everyone at the hospital who cared for me. They treated me with compassion, dignity and respect. I will never forget their kindness. I also want to thank my attorneys and everyone who has fought for me, stood beside me and refused to give up on me.
“I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next. Some days, finding hope is harder than others. For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time. And I am holding on to the love and kindness of so many people who have reminded me that I am not alone.”
Pike was found guilty at age 18, together with her boyfriend, of stabbing and beating 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. The case attracted widespread media attention as Colleen was discovered with an inverted pentagram – a symbol linked to satanic groups – carved into her chest.
Pike has denied carving the symbol herself. Despite Pike’s assertions that she did not ‘even realise the gravity of what I’d done’, two fellow inmates at the facility subsequently testified that she had boasted about the killing both before and afterwards, even displaying a fragment of Colleen’s skull to them.
Colleen Slemmer’s mother made the journey to Tennessee from Florida for the execution, disclosing she has spent decades awaiting the implementation of Pike’s sentence.
