Convicted murderer Christa Pike has broken her silence following her botched execution in Tennessee, revealing that she continues to suffer constant physical and emotional pain. The 50-year-old was given two doses of pentobarbital on September 30, but survived the lethal injection procedure and was taken to hospital, where she received treatment before being discharged.

Pike has since returned to prison. Her lawyers previously confirmed that she was able to walk and speak in complete sentences.

In her first public statement, released through her legal team, Pike recalled entering the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution believing she was about to die.

“A month ago, on September 30, I entered the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution ready to die. I had made peace with my fate,” she said.

“A few days later, I woke up alone in a hospital, confused and in pain. Not a moment has passed since that night when I haven’t been hurting. 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’s pain in my mind and in my soul,” Pike said.

The murder conviction and death sentence

Pike was sentenced to death for the murder of Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

Pike, her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and another young woman, Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer into a wooded area in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she was tortured and killed.

Of the three defendants, only Pike faced a charge carrying the death penalty. Shipp was 17 at the time of the murder and therefore ineligible for execution. He received a life sentence and has since become eligible to seek parole.

Peterson testified against Pike and Shipp and received a sentence of probation.

In 2001, while already in prison, Pike was also convicted of attempted first-degree murder following an attack on a fellow inmate.

Her case attracted international attention because she would have become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Anti-death penalty organisations and Pike’s supporters had called for her sentence to be commuted, citing her young age at the time of the murder and evidence of physical and sexual abuse during her childhood.

What is pentobarbital?

Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol uses pentobarbital, a barbiturate that acts on the central nervous system.

The drug has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for medical purposes, including the short-term treatment of insomnia, the management of certain seizures and use as a pre-anaesthetic before surgery.

However, the FDA does not regulate the use of medications for executions.