PAINFUL TRUTH

Death Row Woman Reveals Agony After Botched Execution

Christa Pike says she’s in constant pain after surviving a lethal injection execution.

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A murder convict who survived a botched execution attempt in Tennessee has described the constant physical pain she suffers a month later. Christa Pike, 50, was injected with two doses of pentobarbital during the botched September 30 execution—but survived and woke up in the hospital. “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. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul,” Pike said in a statement. She said she’s been prepared to die in peace, and was “deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position.” Lee was one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death, after she and her boyfriend were convicted for torturing and stabbing to death Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate, in 1995. Pike’s lawyers have called on Tennessee’s governor to commute her death sentence.