US inmate Christa Pike says she woke up 'confused and in pain' after failed execution

Published30 October 2026, 13:28 GMT

US death row inmate Christa Pike has released her first public statement since her botched execution in September.

"There hasn't been a moment since that night when I haven't been in pain," she said in a statement released by her legal team on social media on Friday.

"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, 50, was discharged from hospital at the end of last month after surviving two lethal injections of the drug pentobarbital, which left her in a critical condition.

She has since been sent back to the prison where she has spent the last 30 years for murdering Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

Pike is thought to be the only person to have survived an execution attempt by lethal injection.

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Her lawyers previously said she had suffered from pneumonia following the attempted execution, had significant swelling on her arms and was also unable to swallow.

"I am recovering, and I know that I am getting stronger," she said in her statement on Friday. "But healing is not the same as being okay."

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for low-income young people.

Shipp was spared the death penalty because he was not legally an adult when the crime was committed. He remains in prison.

Pike's botched execution captivated and shocked the world last month and shocked Pike, too.

"I had not contemplated life beyond that night," Pike said in her statement.

"I'm deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position."

The Tennessee Department of Correction is yet to say why the execution did not go as planned, though it has defended the method it used.

It declined comment on Pike's statement when contacted by the BBC.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee paused all executions for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review to "determine exactly what occurred".

Lee was asked by reporters this week about a potential second execution attempt of Pike, saying: "I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless otherwise determined otherwise by the courts."

Pike was the first woman scheduled to be executed in the state of Tennessee in over 200 years.

Her lawyers have spent decades appealing her case. In the days leading up to her scheduled execution, both the US Supreme Court and Lee declined to block the execution.

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