Who is Christa Pike? Tennessee death row killer in hospital
Teenage killer, 50, still alive after two lethal injections during a failed execution attempt
Christa Pike, who was set to be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years, was taken to hospital on Wednesday night after her heart was still beating following two lethal injections.
Listen to this article
The 50-year-old has been on death row since committing a murder as an 18-year-old in 1995 and was administered two doses of pentobarbital on Wednesday, but was heard snoring 40 minutes later.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said she is now in the hospital, as protocol does not allow for procedures beyond what was carried out.
"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," a spokesman told media.
Pike's defence told a local media outlet: “This has turned into agony and a violation of Pike’s right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.”
Read also: Tennessee set to execute a woman for first time in 200 years
Who is Christa Pike?
Christa Pike is a convicted murderer who is currently on death row in Tennessee, in the US, for her role in a 1995 murder.
She was 18 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, and a third companion Shadolla Peterson 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.
She confessed to the murder and her motive was considered to be that she saw Slemmer as a rival for the affections of Shipp.
Both she and Shipp, then 17, were convicted of murder, but as he was considered a minor, he was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
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.
Pike, meanwhile, was sentenced to death and became the only woman on death row in Tennessee and is set to be the first woman in 200 years to be executed in the US state.
Since her conviction 30 years ago, she has been subject to numerous appeals, including an 11th-hour bid for a stay of execution on Tuesday, which the US Supreme Court rejected.
Pike was additionally convicted of attempted first-degree murder in 2004 after she was accused in 2001 of attempting to strangle fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoelace.
She made an unsuccessful attempt to escape from prison in 2012.
Why was her execution halted?
Pike's counsel have most recently argued that the 1990s conviction came about without the jury being given a full account of how her actions may have been shaped by abuse she suffered as a child.
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.
"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," a lawyer said.
Pike has said herself: “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done.
"Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime."
They have additionally argued that if such mitigation were presented today, then she would not face the death penalty, and they have appealed for her to be given life imprisonment without being on death row.
As it stands, Pike remains on death row, subject to the latest appeal to the Supreme Court.
She is currently in hospital.
When is the death penalty given in the US?
The death penalty is given in 27 US states and is not an option in 23, while the remaining four states currently have a pause on executions.
All of the prisoners currently on death row and all executed in the modern era were convicted of murder, but individual states can decide on the circumstances around whether the murderer should be eligible for the penalty.
There is a precedent for death row being reserved for the worst cases, where the offender participated directly in the murder, and may have committed other crimes alongside it, such as rape or armed robbery.
On average, death row inmates will spend 10 years awaiting execution, but it is not uncommon for it to be more than 20 years between conviction and execution.
What will happen now?
Pike’s counsel has now filed an emergency motion with the US Supreme Court, asking for the execution to be halted, and she currently remains in hospital.
She could be the only person in the modern era of US capital punishment to be executed in Tennessee for a crime committed as a teenager.