Christa Pike’s attorneys are using a social media page to provide updates about her medical condition while also dispelling rumors about their client
- Christa Pike’s attorneys are using an Instagram page they created to provide updates on her medical status and their efforts to seek clemency for her
- Mercy for Christa was initially created earlier this year as lawyers Randy Spivey and Stephen Ferrell sought a stay for Pike, 50, ahead of her execution
- Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer and was set to be executed on Sept. 30, but both attempts to lethally inject her with the drug pentobarbital failed; she is now awake and responsive
Christa Pike’s attorneys are using social media to update the public on the convicted murderer who survived her execution attempt at a Tennessee prison on Sept. 30.
The Instagram page Mercy for Christa was created earlier this year amid her legal team’s quest to seek a stay for the death row inmate. It has now become an information hub where attorneys Randy Spivey and Stephen Ferrell provide updates on any changes or developments regarding Pike’s medical condition while also sharing the status of their ongoing efforts to seek clemency for their client.
It is also being used to dispel and discredit rumors and false information that have began circulating about Pike, who is now awake and speaking just one week after surviving two lethal injections of the drug pentobarbital.
One of those rumors is that Pike had deprived herself of both food and water for days to intentionally put her body into a state of extreme dehydration. The suggestion is that Pike did this because the less hydrated a person is, the more difficult it can be to locate and inject a substance into their veins.
That claim is false, according to her attorneys.
Pike “drank plenty of fluids, including Gatorade, and ate food,” according to both the attorneys and representatives of the Tennessee Department of Corrections. She also consumed a tray of food brought directly to her by the warden at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where the execution attempt took place.
Pike’s lawyers say that she instead chose to donate that food to the homeless in Nashville.
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, Pike’s attorneys announced that she was both responsive and verbal in her hospital bed at an undisclosed facility. They called her recovery “medically unprecedented,” marking the second time in a week that Pike somehow managed to defy the odds.
Pike’s attempted execution was carried out over the course of two hours on Sept. 30.
The mother of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, the woman Christa brutally murdered in 1995, was present during the ordeal and spoke to PEOPLE about what she witnessed.
May Martinez and her husband Raul Martinez Jr. said that the execution began around 6:30 p.m. that day.
The two witnessed Pike being injected with the first lethal dose of pentobarbital, and said it seemed to have no impact.
“She just lay there,” Slemmer’s stepfather Raul said. “She moved her toes a lot.”
After 15 minutes, the curtain closed and when it was reopened, the audience was informed that the medical staff would be injecting a second dose.
The curtain then closed again for approximately 10 to 15 minutes after the second dose was administered, according to Raul.
However, even with the curtain closed, he said he could “hear the sounds of her snoring or gurgling.”
