A woman who says she went to school with death row inmate Christa Pike has made a disturbing claim about her former classmate. The allegation has surfaced just as Pike became the subject of attention across the United States, after an attempt to execute her by lethal injection failed to kill her.
Pike is now 50 years old. She was due to be executed on September 30, but she survived the procedure even after being given two doses of pentobarbital. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, she is believed to be the first person to live through an execution attempt using lethal injection drugs.
A crime from 1995
Pike was convicted over the death of her classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1995. She was found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. At just 18, she became one of the youngest women in American history to be given a death sentence.
She carried out the crime with her boyfriend at the time. He avoided the death penalty because he was not legally an adult when it happened, and he remains in prison.
What the schoolmate says
Rita Morris, who says she was a fellow student, described Pike as "evil". She told a newspaper that Pike had boasted about keeping parts of her victim as souvenirs.
"She was bragging about it and stuff," Morris alleged. "It was like a trophy for her. And as well as a piece of skull, she had a piece of her brain. She said she was going to eat it with her eggs in the morning."
Morris said Pike "deserves no sympathy" and is "just as evil as she was when I knew her". She also alleged that Pike was jealous of Colleen, wrongly believing the teenager was romantically interested in her boyfriend. These remarks are Morris’s own claims, given in an interview.
After the failed execution
Following the attempt, Pike was taken to a medical facility. She reportedly regained the ability to walk and speak there, and was later returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Tennessee.
Her lawyers released a statement on Saturday. "She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances," it read. "She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery."
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not publicly explained why the execution failed.
The victim’s family
Colleen’s mother, May Martinez, has said the state owes her family a "big apology". She and her husband reportedly travelled from Florida to Nashville to watch the execution, holding a photograph of Colleen as they sat in the viewing gallery.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Martinez said: "Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst." Last month, the family marked what would have been Colleen’s 51st birthday.
For now, Pike remains in the custody of the Tennessee prison system while she receives medical care, and the state has yet to say what went wrong.
Image credit: COLLECT
Source: Daily Express US
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