Christa Pike, convicted of murdering a schoolmate three decades ago, survived Tennessee's effort to execute her by lethal injection late on Wednesday, prison officials said. The ordeal marked the state's first attempt to put a woman to death in two centuries, though Pike's immediate condition following her transfer for medical treatment from the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville remained unclear.
The botched execution attempt came hours after the US Supreme Court lifted an 11th-hour lower-court stay, clearing the way for the 50-year-old inmate to be put to death for her role in the 1995 torture and beating death of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.
Journalists who witnessed the execution described snoring, loud exhales, gasps, and complaints from Pike about pain, along with her kicking her feet so frequently that she knocked off the covering sheets, according to NBC News. Pike's lawyers filed a federal court motion during the process seeking to halt her execution, citing witnesses' accounts that executioners had injected both syringes of lethal chemicals while Pike was still alive, NBC News reported.
The Tennessee Department of Correction defended its handling of the high-profile execution, stating it followed every step of the state's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office, despite opposition from human rights experts citing her age at the time of the crime, childhood sexual abuse, and untreated mental illness.
Tennessee prison officials previously aborted attempts to execute a man in May after failing to find a suitable vein for a lethal injection.