After unsuccessful execution attempt, woman returned from hospital to prison

Krista Pike was discharged from hospital after surviving a failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection in Tennessee on Sept. 30 and returned to prison, her lawyers said Saturday.

Pike, 50, has returned to Deborah K. Johnson's rehabilitation centre, where she has been incarcerated for the past three decades, her lawyers said in a statement.

“She is grateful to the emergency responders and her medical team for their assistance in these extraordinary circumstances,” Pike’s attorneys added. She continues to receive medical treatment in prison and we will continue to monitor her recovery.

Saturday's news about Pike comes 10 days after a death row inmate was administered two doses of pentobarbital, a lethal injectable drug, in what turned out to be a failed execution attempt. She was hospitalized after surviving a botched execution and a brain death was announced on Monday.

But on Thursday, a shocking turn of events took place: her lawyer said she was “up and able to walk” even though she remained “somewhat cloudy” and unable to actively use her hands.

Pike said her hands were burning during the failed execution and asked if it should have been felt. Witnesses in the room said “it wasn’t as usual,” while officials said they followed every step of the Tennessee-approved execution protocol.

There is no official explanation as to why Pike survived the execution. Medical experts suggest that perhaps part or most of the drug did not enter the vein and entered the surrounding tissue, that one of its veins burst, that the drug was of poor quality, or that it is a combination of such factors.

Months earlier, her lawyers had reported that Pike had had vein problems.

In 1995, Pike was convicted of the torture and murder of 18-year-old Colleen Slemmer and her classmate in Knoxville. According to court documents, Pike, who was also 19 at the time, was concerned that Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaril Shipp. Shipp and Pike took Slemmer to a wooded part of the University of Tennessee campus and killed her. Krista Pike was sentenced to death and Shipp was sentenced to life in prison as he was under 18. After Slemmer's murder, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, her lawyers said.

“It took me many years to realize the gravity of what I’ve done,” Pike said in an earlier petition for clemency. “Even more when you realize how many lives I have touched. I took the life of someone's child, sister, friend. It pains me to think that I could have committed such a crime.”.

That Pike survived a botched execution shocked many in the US and abroad and spurred critics of the death penalty. Tennessee's top prison official has announced his resignation. Governor Bill Lee has suspended executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday canceled a planned lethal injection in the state. But elsewhere executions continue, for example, on Thursday the Pentagon confirmed it plans to broadcast live the shooting in December of former army psychiatrist Nidal Hassan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas.