Christa Pike is “up and walking” while in hospital after last week’s botched attempt to execute her in the US state of Tennessee, a member of her legal team says.
Pike, 50, who was sentenced to death after murdering Colleen Slemmer with her then-boyfriend in 1995, survived two lethal injections on 30 September. Experts described it as unprecedented.
Speaking late on Wednesday to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, lawyer Stephen Ferrell said he had not spoken to Pike directly but that he had learned she was moving around her hospital room for the first time while still being mentally “foggy”.
Earlier, a court ordered the state of Tennessee to preserve all evidence related to the failed execution.
That evidence could lay the groundwork for a future lawsuit against the state.
The Pike case is now in uncharted territory, as Pike is believed to be the only person to have survived an execution attempt by lethal injection.
The failed execution was branded a “mess” by the mother of Slemmer, who was among those pushing for Pike to be put to death.
Pike’s boyfriend at the time of Slemmer’s gruesome murder, Tadaryl Shipp, was spared the death penalty because he was not legally an adult when the crime was committed. He remains in prison.
Pike was 18 and Shipp was 17 when they beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teens. (BBC)