Daniel Ngendahimana
US death row inmate Christa Pike has left hospital 10 days after surviving a failed execution by lethal injection, according to her lawyers.
Pike, 50, has returned to the prison where she has spent the past 30 years. Her lawyers said on Saturday that she is still receiving medical care.
On 30 September, Pike survived two attempts to execute her using a drug called pentobarbital. She was left in a critical condition but regained consciousness earlier this week and started speaking again.
Her lawyers said she was “grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances”.
Officials in Tennessee have not explained why the execution failed. At a court hearing on Wednesday, a state lawyer said he did not know whether officials would try to execute Pike again.
The judge ordered the state to keep all evidence related to the failed execution. The evidence could be used in a future court case.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. They had met her at a training camp for young people from low-income families.
Shipp was not sentenced to death because he was not legally an adult when the crime happened. He remains in prison.
Pike was the first woman scheduled to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Her lawyers have spent decades challenging her death sentence.
After the failed execution, her lawyers renewed their request for her sentence to be changed to life in prison without the possibility of release.
Sugira Nsabimana Aime Christian
