Execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee halted after two lethal injections failed

Robin M Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike experienced is "singular and unparalleled."

Seven other people have survived medical problems due to an execution team's failure to access a vein to administer lethal injection drugs, but no one has stayed alive after receiving the drugs used in such executions, she said.

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teens. Pike believed Slemmer had insulted her and was trying to take her boyfriend away from her.

The murder drew intense media attention in Knoxville, Tennessee, after Slemmer's body was found with an inverted pentagram, a symbol associated with satanic groups, carved into her chest.

Pike denied carving the symbol herself. Two other residents of the camp later testified that Pike had bragged about the killing both before and after it took place, and had shown them a piece of Slemmer's skull.

In a clemency petition, Pike said she had intended to beat Slemmer, not kill her, but was unable to "put the brakes on".

"I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid," she said in a statement. "It took me numerous years to even realise 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."

Slemmer's mother said that she wanted the execution to go ahead, telling the Associated Press she had waited decades to see Pike's sentence carried out.

Tennessee governor Bill Lee said in a statement that he had ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” and the remaining scheduled execution would not take place this year.

“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” he said.

While the execution was under way, Pike's legal team filed an emergency motion in the Tennessee Supreme Court to immediately stop the process, saying that after receiving the two doses she was still alive and experiencing "unnecessary agony”.

They said the prolonged nature of the attempt had caused her "superadded physical and mental suffering".

"Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring."

Media witnesses, who were allowed into the witness room at 6.26pm before her execution, said Pike spoke what she thought would be her last words.

“I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life,” she said, according to Nashville Banner. “And that is with love.”

Pike said she loved her detractors as much as she loved the people who were on her side.

“I’m at peace, I’m ready to be free. This is a happy day,” she finished.

Pike spoke during the process, telling witnesses: "My arm feels like it's about to burst open."

Witnesses reported being surprised by how much she spoke in the early stages of the process as she and her spiritual adviser also sang a song.

Later, they said, her breathing got laboured, but she did not appear to be in distress.

Tennessee Department of Correction spokesperson Dorinda Carter defended the agency's handling of the execution.

“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office,” she said in a statement to the Tennessean newspaper.

“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."

Pike's lawyers rejected that account in their statement to the newspaper.

"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."

The execution had already been delayed for hours after a panel of the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay to allow further review of her legal challenges. The US Supreme Court later lifted that stay at Tennessee's request in a 6-3 decision, allowing the execution to proceed before Pike's death warrant expired at midnight.

Pike's federal public defenders told the Tennessee Supreme Court she was "still alive and snoring" and asked the court to immediately halt the process.

"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," her attorneys, Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason, said.

Pike was later taken to hospital where she was "being provided life-saving measures”, one of her attorneys told the BBC.

Tennessee failed in its attempt to execute Christa Pike, who survived and was rushed to hospital late on Wednesday despite being administered two doses of a lethal drug.

Pike was due to be the first woman put to death in the state in 200 years, after a court overturned a late stay of execution. Experts say her survival is unprecedented.

The attempted execution took place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at about 8pm local time. Pike, 50, was being executed for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student she tortured and killed when she was 18.

Officials administered pentobarbital to Pike twice, and witnesses reported the curtain to the execution chamber was drawn and reopened on two separate occasions as the procedure continued.

Reporters present were eventually told to leave, according to the Associated Press.