Christa Pike 'angry and confused' after failed execution, her lawyer says - BBC News.

A judge in Tennessee has ordered the preservation of all evidence linked to the attempted execution of death row inmate Krista Pike. It comes after a court hearing Wednesday where the state said that the Tennessee Supreme Court must decide whether a new order to execute Pike will be introduced. The governor of that state has paused all further executions for the rest of 2026 after that incident. Well on Tuesday, her legal team said that Pike was conscious and speaking after surviving two doses of lethal injection last week. The 50-year-old is continuing to receive critical medical care in hospital. She was sentenced to death three decades ago for the murder of her then classmate Colleen Slemmer. Her legal team gave an update on her condition Wednesday saying that she's quote angry and confused. Our correspondent Netta Taufe has more. A week since her attempted execution, Krista Pike is hanging on to life. Tonight her lawyers gave new details about the astonishing sequence of events. On Monday night, it was our understanding that Krista was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day. But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone, including me, including her team, and including the medical team, Krista woke up and began talking. I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning. But what we do know is that Krista has a long road to recovery. They described Krista as angry and confused and gave this update on her condition. Our understanding was the first thing she said was, where am I and who are you? She has a blood clot in one of her arms. She has pneumonia. She is not able to swallow yet, so she has not eaten. She cannot move either of her arms. Both of her arms and hands are tremendously swollen, and we do not know what, if any, function she will regain in her arms. At an emergency court hearing today, a judge ordered Tennessee to preserve a broad range of physical evidence and documentation relating to the botched execution. Krista Pike has been on death row for more than three decades after she was convicted at the age of 18 of torturing and murdering classmate Colleen Slemmer. Her recovery has been described as medically unprecedented after she survived two rounds of what should have been a lethal injection. Media who attended the failed execution recounted what happened. Again at 8.05, her body flexed as she gasped for air. When she didn't die, the state was obligated to take her to hospital for life-saving treatment. This extraordinary case and the fact that it's the second botched execution in Tennessee this year is raising larger questions about the death penalty in America. Other states have also experienced botched executions, lethal injection being the one that is botched most often. And that's because of a variety of things. One is that the staff sometimes don't have the necessary training. Sometimes the drugs themselves are expired or Tennessee's governor has now suspended any further executions for the rest of the year and ordered an independent review of her case. It's deeply disturbing to me that that has happened in this state. The people deserve better than that. Having just been provided life-saving care, the question is whether Tennessee will seek once again to execute Krista Pike. Her lawyers say that would be unimaginable. I want to correct you on the front end. I've actually been corresponding with Krista. Ah, thank you. Yes. Right, right. So I got to know her over the past few months. We were connected by a mutual friend to walk her through this chapter. And so that's been a gift, actually. What were some of the things that she told you in that correspondence? We talked a lot about our day-to-day, particularly at the beginning. I would send pictures of hummingbirds and let her know just kind of what was going on on the daily and try to bring some peace and normalcy to her existence as she kind of prepared for the last few weeks. What was that preparation process like for her, you know, in your correspondence? Did you get a sense of what she was thinking about, I guess, in the lead-up to what we now know obviously was an execution that went wrong? Krista was at peace. She has an amazing spiritual advisor. And so the lead-up to those few weeks were just kind of her wrapping her mind around the fact that it was time and the time was quickly approaching and preparing for her day to cross is really what she was looking at. And do you know what she had been told about the way that the lethal injection process would proceed? I don't know what she had been told about the way that the lethal injection process would proceed. I know that she was familiar with what happened with Tony Carruthers in May, which obviously caused her some distress. We heard there, of course, Krista was convicted of the murder and torture of her former classmate. The details of her behavior in the days after are documented as well, difficult to describe. Was she aware, you know, in terms of your conversations with her, of the pain that she did cause to Colleen Slumber, the victim in that case and her family? Oh, absolutely. I mean, Krista has been very remorseful and has spoken of that many times. Yes, she was absolutely aware of the pain that she caused. Yeah. And as someone who works in this space, you know, looking more broadly, how do you think the events of this botched execution there in Tennessee will impact the way that the public perceives the death penalty in the United States? I think that Krista's waking up is a miracle. I think that the botched execution was something that we could see coming, given that it happened with Tony and that it happened three times prior when Strada was overseeing executions in Arizona. And I believe that Krista being here with us again is causing us to take a look at how we treat the least of these. And I think that there's a call for something bigger here, because what we do behind a closed curtain, we have a right as a public to take a look at. And there are still 39 men on death row. And while the governor has called for a stay for the executions this year, there are still other dates that are waiting to be set. Bethany Mann, founder of Child Arise Tennessee, that's a group that works with the families of those on death row and someone who has corresponded with Krista Pike as well. Thank you very much for your perspective on that case.