Knox County Criminal Court/Supplied
Almost nine months before her botched execution, Christa Gail Pike’s lawyers disclosed her living with a rare blood cancer.
Per People, her lawyers submitted a court filing from January 8, 2026, with concerns that her planned execution would “very likely to result in unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace”.
The 50-year-old was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder and torture of her former Job Corps Center classmate Colleen Slemmer.
She committed the crime when she was 18 years old with her former boyfriend, Taradyl Shipp, who received a life sentence. Fellow student Shadolla Peterson admitted she acted as a lookout and was sentenced to probation in exchange for testifying against Pike and Shipp.
Since then, she has been on death row and was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
The paperwork also said she lives with myeloproliferative disorder, which is when the body produces too many red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets.
According to the document, her lawyers argued that her increased platelet levels could lead to the risk of her developing a dangerous buildup of lung fluid called pulmonary edema, during a lethal injection.
“A pulmonary edema is not simply painful or uncomfortable; it can create a sense of suffocating or drowning that has been likened by experts to the sensation intentionally induced by the practice of waterboarding—an unambiguous form of outright torture,” the filing said.
Her representatives also raised issues with her veins, her “history of difficulty” when needles are inserted, and blood draws.
Has Christa Pike woken up?
On September 30, she was injected with one singular dose of pentobarbital; however, the execution did not go to plan.
Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiologist who has been advising Pike’s defence team, suggested that not enough of the drug reached her bloodstream.
Then, she was injected for a second time but survived.
She was then rushed to hospital. Following the injections, she was considered to be brain dead, and later woke up and began talking, before doctors planned to remove her life support.
At the time, her lawyer, Stephen Ferrell, told the BBC that Pike started walking, but was “somewhat foggy”.
“She is up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, you know, not very far,” he said after the botched execution.
“She can lose her train of thought really easily and forgets where she’s going.”
“There could be some permanent damage. We don’t know that yet.”
She was discharged from a Nashville hospital on October 9, and in a statement, said she returned to the emergency room once since, but was not readmitted for inpatient care.
Fast forward to one month after her attempted execution, she issued an update on her health.
“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain,” she said in the statement.
“My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has called for an investigation into the failed attempt and has stopped executions in the state for the rest of the year.
Pike has said she would like to return to prison, doesn’t want to go back to her former pod, and her physical health puts her at risk.
“I could not defend myself or get away if another inmate attacked me,” Pike said, per People. “I am afraid that I will be seriously hurt if I am moved to that pod while I am this weak.”
At the time of publication, she spends her time in an infirmary alone.
