After Surviving Botched Execution, Christa Pike Speaks Out for First Time: 'I Still Struggle to Speak'
Christa Pike issued public comments for the first time since her botched execution.
The convicted killer was supposed to be executed by the state of Tennessee on Sept. 30, but despite two injections of pentobarbital, she did not die.
After spending several days in a hospital, she was returned to prison. Pike was convicted of the brutal 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.
“I am recovering, and I know that I am getting stronger,” Pike said in her statement, according to NBC News. “But healing is not the same as being okay.”
“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,” Pike said, according to CNN.
“And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul,” the statement continued.
Pike said she was “prepared to die” and then “woke up alone in a hospital confused and in pain.”
“Since that night, I have been largely isolated in the prison’s medical ward, away from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me,” Pike said.
“That isolation brings its own kind of pain. I spent 28 years in solitary confinement and much of what I am experiencing today is a repeat of that condition,” she said.
“I had not contemplated life beyond that night and I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position,” the statement said, according to NBC News.
Pike said, “I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured.”
May Martinez, the mother of the woman Pike killed, has said Tennessee must “make this right” and move forward to execute Pike.
Pike thanked those who cared for her after the botched execution, saying they “treated me with compassion, dignity and respect.”
It is unclear what will happen next.
Outgoing Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who halted all executions after the failed attempt to kill Pike, has not heeded calls to commute her sentence.
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Lee is not inclined to commute Pike’s sentence and take the death penalty off the table, he told reporters this week in Nashville.
“She’s still incarcerated under the laws of the State of Tennessee,” Lee said, according to CNN. “I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts.”
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn has said if she wins the governor’s race, she would move forward to execute Pike, although legal battles are likely.
Pike, in her statement, said she was “searching for meaning in what happened to me.”
“I don’t know why I survived that night,” she said in her statement.
“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,” she said.
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