Teenage killer survives execution attempt after 30 years on death row

Christa Gail Pike had been waiting to die for more than 30 years when she received her first lethal injection.Warning: This story contains details that may be distressing for some readers.After the second dose, she was still waiting.Pike was set to become the first woman executed in the US state of Tennessee in more than 200 years, and the only person executed in the state's modern death penalty era for a crime committed at just 18 years of age.But on Wednesday night, local time, having refused her last meal, the 50-year-old received two doses of pentobarbital at a maximum security prison in Nashville and did not die.Instead, witnesses were ordered to leave the facility, the curtain was drawn on the execution chamber, and Pike was rushed to a nearby hospital for "life-saving" medical care, according to her legal team.WKRN journalist Tori Gastner, a witness of five Tennessee executions to date, spoke outside the prison shortly after emergency services were called."Nothing about today was normal, typical, at all," Ms Gastner said."She was clearly alive, she was clearly still breathing … we could all hear that."Media witnesses recounted the moments before the execution of Christa Pike was halted. ( AP: George Walker IV)Pike's legal team has since called for an emergency stay of execution.Previously, they had argued Pike's "small veins" and other medical conditions made lethal injection a more risky procedure."I've felt more love in the last two weeks than I have my entire life," she wrote in a letter sent to NBC News earlier this week."I'm not afraid to die. I'm only nervous about the process."Two teens at a Tennessee training programIn January of 1995, Pike and Colleen Slemmer were students at the Job Corps Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.Ms Slemmer was 19 years old, originally from Florida.She was sweet and helpful, volunteering to paint her school and at Special Olympics competitions, her mother, May Martinez, said.This undated photo provided by May Martinez shows her daughter, Colleen Slemmer. (AP: May Martinez)"She worked with the handicapped children at lunch and … made sure they could get around," she told local outlet The Nashville Banner.She could take a computer apart and put it back together, and often wore a "Computer Geek" T-shirt.It was that aptitude with technology which prompted her grandfather to suggest she start taking computer courses at Job Corps.Job Corps was marketed as a "government-run residential program designed to help troubled teens gain job skills", according to court documents.Pike, then 18, was enrolled in a nursing course at the same centre.By that time, she had already experienced a lifetime of abuse.Court filings noted she had been exposed to alcohol in utero, something which left her with severe brain damage and limited impulse control.Christa Pike, seen in a photo released by Cornell Law School. (Supplied)More records showed severe neglect, alleged repeated sexual abuse, and drug use from as young as nine years old."The Job Corps was an opportunity for Christa to 'make something' of herself and to make her parents proud," a court petition said.Instead, the program allegedly "tolerated violence and neglected" its residents."Students routinely carried razor blades or box cutters for protection," documents said."The administrators at Job Corps created an environment in which Christa was forced to rely upon her family's earlier teachings."Violence is always the answer."Pike 'just felt mean that day'On January 11, 1995, Pike told another student, Kim Iloilo, she wanted to kill Ms Slemmer.She "just felt mean that day", she said.Pike believed Ms Slemmer had been "trying to get [her] boyfriend", a 17-year-old called Tadaryl Shipp.Witnesses later said Shipp, another Job Corps student, and Pike had a tumultuous, controlling and physically abusive relationship.Tensions had been building for some time between Pike and Ms Slemmer.At 8pm the next day, the pair were seen walking away from the Job Corps building, along with Shipp and another student, Shadolla Peterson.Pike had asked Ms Slemmer to come with her to a music store.She added they were also going to get drugs, which Pike said were hidden in nearby Tyson Park, just minutes away from the University of Tennessee campus.At 10:15pm, Pike, Shipp and Peterson returned without Ms Slemmer.Christa Pike talked investigators through what had happened. (Reuters: IMAGN Images)"Later that night, Pike went to Iloilo's room and told [her] she had just killed Slemmer," Supreme Court documents said."[She said] she had brought back a piece of the victim's skull as a souvenir."Pike showed Iloilo the piece of skull and told her that she had cut the victim's throat six times, beaten her, and thrown asphalt at the victim's head."Pike told Iloilo that the victim had begged … but Pike did not stop because the victim continued to talk."The next morning, she told Ms Iloilo the piece of Ms Slemmer's skull was still in her pocket.At a class later that day, she pointed to brown spots on her shoes, saying, "that ain't mud on my shoes, that's blood".She described the killing again to another student, showing off the skull fragment again.At the same time, a University of Tennessee Grounds Department employee had discovered Ms Slemmer's body.The employee later said her body was "so badly beaten that he had first mistaken it for the corpse of an animal".By January 14, police had identified and interviewed Pike.She told them everything.Decades in a cell 'smaller than a parking space'Pike was the only offender capitally charged in the murder of Ms Slemmer.Her boyfriend, Shipp, just a few months younger than her and therefore a minor at the time of the crime, received a life sentence.The other teen, then-19-year-old Peterson, received probation in exchange for testifying against Pike and Shipp.Peterson testified she had not participated in the killing, but had acted as a lookout.A Supreme Court judge stated Pike showed "a total disregard for human life and human suffering".As the only woman on Tennessee's death row, Pike has spent "22 to 23 hours a day in a room smaller than a parking space".Her cell inside a Nashville women's prison has a small window in the door for light, a narrow bed, a desk, a bookcase and a toilet."Ms Pike's cell has one outward-facing slit in the wall, three to four feet tall and three to four inches wide," a court filing said."If she tilts her head slightly, Ms Pike can see the outside world."A last-ditch plea for 'mercy' before execution given green lightAfter years of attempted appeals and last-ditch efforts, Pike's final request for clemency was denied on September 28.Her lawyers had filed a 226-page plea earlier this year, detailing Pike's early abuse, her actions behind bars, and pleading for "mercy".This photo of a young Christa Pike was shared by her legal team as part of a final clemency request. (Supplied)"There is a picture of Christa as a child I think often about," her assistant post-conviction defender, Randall Spivey, wrote."She is outside, her curly red hair is slightly blown by the wind. She has big brown eyes, and her mouth is drawn tight in a straight line."[I] think of this picture because I know it was taken about the time Christa was first sexually abused."More than 100 organisations and experts had also called on Governor Bill Lee to commute Pike's sentence to prison without parole.A last-minute reprieve was granted by an appeals court just an hour before the execution was set to go ahead.This was later overturned by the US Supreme Court at 6pm, local time, without an explanation.Botched execution attempt and 'emergency' medical careShortly before 7pm, local time, media witnesses reported Pike said her last words, stating she was ready to be "free"."At 7:34 she said, 'my arm feels like it's about to burst open,'" journalist Tori Gastner told waiting media, flipping through pages of notes."Then she smiles really big … her [spiritual] advisor says 'relax', she says 'I'm trying'."The curtains closed first at 7:46, and she was clearly still alive … breathing and snoring."The curtains opened again three minutes later, she was snoring very loudly at that point. The curtains close again at 8.05."Emergency vehicles left Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after the execution was halted. (AP: George Walker IV)The curtains remained closed despite repeated requests from media for them to be reopened."[That was] because we could still audibly hear her snoring, and we were looked at like, 'uh, we don't know,'" Ms Gastner said.Media were escorted out at 8:53pm while Pike was still making noise out of sight.Pike's execution is now at least the second botched attempt in Tennessee this year, following an hours-long lethal injection attempt in May.In that attempt, death row inmate Tony Carruthers was given a one-year reprieve after the execution team was unable to complete a back-up IV line or a central line.According to Carruthers's legal team the execution team punctured him more than a dozen times while trying to complete the attempt.According to the Death Penalty Information Center lethal injection has the highest rate of being botched of any execution method.Will Pucket, a journalist from Knoxville outlet WVLT, said the execution seemed "very out of sorts" from early on."Her lip quivered at one point, it sounded like she was choking," he said, adding Pike lifted herself up multiple times after the drug was administered.The Tennessee Department of Corrections later issued a statement saying it stood by the "consistently effective" lethal injection protocol followed.But on Thursday, Governor Bill Lee suspended all scheduled executions in Tennessee and ordered an independent review of the second failed attempt to execute Pike."This is a tragedy," he said. "There is no-one who wanted last night to happen."Pike remained in a critical condition on Thursday, Mr Spivey told reporters"We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment," he said."But we do know that she is alive right now and receiving life-saving medical care."'Every day, every hour, every minute, she's gone'Ms Slemmer's mother, Ms Martinez, travelled from Florida to Nashville to attend the execution."I'll hold Colleen's picture up to remind her of what she did," Ms Martinez told local outlet WBIR earlier this week."Saying something and talking to her now, after all these years, that she never apologised … what's the point?"September 20, 10 days before the execution was set to go ahead, would have been Ms Slemmer's 51st birthday."[Colleen's] not with me," Ms Martinez said."Every day, every hour, every minute, she's gone."Ms Martinez did not speak to media after leaving the facility. Neither did Texas Department of Corrections officials.