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Tennessee botched its first execution of a female prisoner in 206 years late Wednesday, when convicted murderer Christa Pike survived the two lethal injections.
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Pike → log → injections
Pike, 50, was sent to death row following a murder committed in a jealous rage when she was 18 and had been due to be put to death after a court overturned a late stay.
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court → send → stay
Experts say her survival is unprecedented.
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survival → say → ?
Officials at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville administered pentobarbital to Pike twice, but she was later heard snoring.
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she → administer → Pike
Witnesses say the curtain to the execution chamber was drawn and reopened on two separate occasions before the procedure was halted and they were asked to leave.
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they → say → occasions
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who declined a clemency appeal from Pike’s lawyers earlier this week, has since issued a statement suspending all executions this year and calling for a “comprehensive, third-party review” of the execution attempt, according to The Nashville Tennessean.
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who → decline → Tennessean
Here’s an overview of her case.
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overview → ’ → case
Pike and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time, were convicted over the January 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at Knoxville Job Corps.
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who → convict → Corps
Prosecutors stated that Pike feared Slemmer was a love rival and lured her to a secluded area, where the pair tortured and killed her.
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pair → state → her
The case attracted widespread attention and rocked the city of Knoxville because to the brutal nature of the slaying, the ages of those involved and the fact that a Satanic pentagram was carved into the victim’s body.
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pentagram → attract → body
Prosecutors said Pike slashed Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt.
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Pike → say → asphalt
The pentagram detail stoked fears of Satan worship during the “Satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.
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detail → stoke → 1980s
Shipp has admitted that he was the one who carved the symbol.
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who → admit → symbol
Pike does not deny her guilt, but her attorneys and supporters argue that a death sentence is not appropriate for a crime committed at that age by a teenager suffering from untreated mental illness after a childhood of brutal sexual abuse and neglect.
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sentence → deny → abuse
However, Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has said she wanted the execution to go ahead, stating that she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.
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sentence → say → ?
How have her attorneys argued her case?
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attorneys → argue → case
Pike's attorneys have said she experienced an exceptionally traumatic and abusive childhood.
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she → say → childhood
Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike was sexually abused starting from when she was a toddler and that she was raped at ages 11 and 17.
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she → say → ages
He said her lawyers at the penalty phase of her trial did not present the jury with what he said was critical information about her past or argue that her age should be a consideration.
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age → say → past
Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Pike → diagnose → disorder
Pike told police she initially only wanted to fight Slemmer but ended up killing her in a frenzied attack.
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she → tell → attack
In her clemency petition, Pike’s attorneys said her untreated mental illness and background made her unable to “put the brakes on.”
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her → say → brakes
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid,” Pike herself said in a statement included in her clemency petition.
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Pike → say → petition
“It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done.
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I → take → what
Even more to accept how many lives I affected.
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I → accept → lives
I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend.
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I → take → friend
It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.”
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I → sicken → crime
Ferrell said more today is known about adolescent brain development and that Pike’s death sentence is an outlier.
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sentence → say → development
He noted that Shipp was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole because of his age at the time of the slaying.
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Shipp → note → slaying
He was denied parole last year.
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He → deny → parole
A third teen admitted to being an accessory and received probation.
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teen → admit → probation
In the modern death penalty era, Ferrell said, other 18-year-olds who were sentenced to death in Tennessee have since had their sentences reduced.
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sentences → say → Tennessee
The Death Penalty Information Center said 275 people nationwide have been executed for crimes they committed at age 18, 19 or 20 in the modern death penalty era, but that death sentences for those in that age group have become increasingly rare.
“If Christa Pike was tried today, I do not believe a jury that knew about the documented sexual abuse and neglect she experienced as a child would sentence her to death,” Robin M Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, has said.
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Maher → say → Center
What have Colleen Slemmer’s family said?
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family → say → What
Speaking by telephone from Florida, Martinez pointed to her daughter’s age and said Slemmer never got a chance to grow up.
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Slemmer → speak → chance
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” she said.
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she → think → pain
Martinez said her daughter volunteered with the Special Olympics, loved roller skating and wanted to pursue a career in computers.
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daughter → say → computers
“She was easygoing,” Martinez said.
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Martinez → say → ?
“She was a computer geek to begin with.
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She → begin → ?
She and my husband would build and tear apart the computers constantly.
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She → build → computers
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
