‘Is this normal?’ Death row killer asks as she endures 'worst botched execution in the modern era’ - but she may have brain damage
Christa Pike, 50, was due to be the first woman to be executed in the US state for more than 200 years for killing a classmate in 1995.
A Satanic killer on death row left her executioners astounded after asking whether the pain in her arm was "normal" before loudly snoring following two botched lethal injections.
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Christa Pike, 50, could be left brain damaged after shockingly surviving what has been described as the "worst botched execution in the modern era".
Journalists watched live from the execution chamber as she received two syringes of pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reporters said she appeared visibly awake as the process began, and even broke into song with her spiritual advisor.
As she was strapped into the gurney, Pike reportedly said: "I'm going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life. And that is with love."
Moments after the injections were administered, the Tennessee murderer reportedly noticed a burning spot in her arm and asked whether this was "normal".
Read more: Who is Christa Pike? Tennessee death row killer in hospital
Witnesses said there was nothing "normal" about what they saw, reporting that the process lasted an "abnormally long" time.
Curtains separating the killer from the viewing room reportedly shut at 7.46pm, before opening again at 7.49pm.
A final dose of lethal injection was administered at 8.06pm. But 40 minutes later, witnesses were left in shock after Pike was hear loudly snoring and gasping.
"Her mouth fell open a few times, and she began to loudly snore. She gasped a few times," another witness said.
Pike's lawyers filed a motion late last night to try and have the execution put on hold after notcing their client in “unnecessary agony”.
Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Pike's experience is completely "unparalleled”.
Dr Joel Zivot, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine, said it is "very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury".
Pike was set to be the first woman to be executed in the US state for more than 200 years for stabbing and beating a classmate three decades ago in 1995.
She is now recovering in hospital following the botched execution, authorities said,
Pike's legal team said: "Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution.
"We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."
In a statement, the Tennessee Department of Correction said it followed "every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,
"The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility," the statement concluded.
There had been a last-minute legal challenge to try to stop the execution but in the end the Supreme Court ruled it should go ahead.
Pike, 50, whose clemency petition highlighting childhood trauma and sexual abuse was denied by Governor Bill Lee on Monday.
She would be the only person in the modern era of US capital punishment to be executed in Tennessee for a crime committed as a teenager.
Pike was 18 in 1995 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend and a third companion lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at their Knoxville Job Corps vocational center, into a wooded area where they tortured and killed her.
The gruesome nature of the murder, which involved the perpetrators carving the shape of a pentagram in the victim's chest and taking a chunk of her skull as a souvenir, drew intense media coverage at the time.
Trial testimony indicated that Pike viewed Slemmer as a rival for the affections of her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.
Pike and Shipp confessed to the killing, and both were convicted the following year of first-degree murder.
Because Shipp was 17 at the time of Ms Slemmer's murder, jurors could not consider the death penalty, and he received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Their co-defendant, Shadolla Peterson, who was 18 at the time of the murder and had acted as a lookout for the other two, appeared as a witness for the prosecution and received probation.
Currently the only woman on the southern state's death row, Pike was also convicted in August 2001 of attempted first-degree murder in an assault on another inmate, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
In a 226-page petition asking the governor to commute her death sentence to a life sentence without the possibility of parole, her lawyers documented her history as a childhood victim of violence, neglect and sexual abuse, including two rapes at ages 11 and 17.
They also cited the diagnoses she received in prison for bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Her lawyers also pointed to evidence that Pike's mother drank heavily during pregnancy, contributing to faulty brain development that made it difficult for their client to control her impulses as a young person.
"The 18-year-old girl suffering from severe mental illness and near-debilitating trauma no longer exists," her lawyers wrote in response to Lee's denial of clemency.
"Christa is a 50-year-old remorseful woman who understands her actions, receives proper treatment for her mental illness, and provides for and guides fellow incarcerated women."
Ms Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, has spoken out in support of the execution.
Executions of female prison inmates are exceedingly rare in the US, with women accounting for just 18 of the 1,683 people put to death since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Before Wednesday, Tennessee had executed 17 people.Pike's case has drawn international attention, with a group of United Nations human rights experts issuing a recent statement calling for commutation of her death sentence.
'Madness'
Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer who has represented over 400 people on death row in the US, has told LBC News cases of people surviving execution attempts "happens quite a lot' because 'no drug company actually wants their life-saving drugs used to kill people".
He told Simon Conway on Thursday morning: "I've had six of my clients unfortunately executed, and it never goes as smoothly and professionally as they would like to think. So it's not surprising and there are reasons for that.
"One is that it's very hard for them to get the drugs they want that are good drugs, because no drug company actually wants their life-saving drugs used to kill people.
"Another is that the people who do it are not doctors because they can't under the Hippocratic Oath, so they can never hit a vein, and so on and so forth."
Mr Stafford Smith suggested Pike could be left with brain damage following the botched execution.
"They then take her to hospital to try to help her recover, only because they want to kill her again. And this madness goes ona and I think it's just illustrative of the whole process," he added.
Mr Stafford Smith then went on to say there was an irony to putting Pike to death given Tennessee planned introduction of the death penalty for child rapists.
"99% of the people we've executed since '77 have been men. And for whatever reason, people get a bit more upset about women.
"With Christa, there's another twist. Tennessee has been trying to institute the death penalty for people who rape children. Now, Christa, when she was a child, was indeed raped herself an awful lot of times.
Mr Stafford Smith then went on to say there was an irony to putting Pike to death given Tennessee's planned introduction of the death penalty for child rapists.e to see as a death penalty offence, that I think this does illustrate the deranged nature of the whole process."