Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday.
Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system.
When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”
Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.
Tennessee prison officials gave Pike two doses of the lethal injection drug on Wednesday night. The pentobarbital didn’t kill her, but her lawyers said her arms were burned and blistered from the caustic drugs.
Pike gave someone her medical power of attorney and that person is protecting her privacy, Ferrell said.
“I’m not sure what all they may have told that person,” Ferrell said.
Pike’s attorneys have not identified who is making Pike’s medical decisions.
A spokeswoman for Pike’s defense team said in a statement early Sunday that “we appreciate all respect for Christa’s rightful privacy.”