Why Christa Pike is on life support despite being sentenced to death
Christa Pike remains on life support in hospital with specialists keeping her alive - despite spending three decades on death row.
It followed a fail execution attempt of the killer which has made repeated headlines since she was taken to hospital following the incident on 30 September.
Pike, now aged 50, was due to become the first woman put to death in Tennessee in two centuries after being sent to prison for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.
She had spent three decades on death row awaiting her fate before she survived two doses of the lethal injection.
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Her lawyer said her future now remains uncertain as doctors attempt to clear two doses of pentobarbital from her body.
Pike reportedly 'remains critically ill' and is being treated at a hospital in Nashville, Texas, with her legal team claiming she 'may not fully recover'.
Her lawyer Stephen Ferrel told CNN of her current status: “She is guarded. I’m not sure who may have seen her.
"I know I have not seen her. The state of Tennessee has not yet said whether it will ultimately try to execute her again.”
Reason for life-saving treatment
With the convicted killer remaining on a ventilator, questions are being raised as to why she is still receiving life-saving medical care despite the execution attempts and her death penalty sentence.
But this is because the death sentence had been imposed by the courts, with her execution authorised to be carried out only at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she was imprisoned.
Constitutional attorney David Raybin, who helped write the Tennessee death penalty statute, told Fox 17, "She is in a situation where the government itself is responsible for failing to execute her properly; they bear the consequences.
"The death sentence was imposed by a court, but it was to be done at the prison.
"They can not 'execute' her at a hospital by removing her life support. That would be murder."
Gov. Bill Lee has since halted the one remaining execution for the rest of the year in Tennessee pending an investigation.
And Tennessee's prisons chief resigned after the failed execution of Pike on 30 September.
Frank Strada has stepped down from his post after Pike's lethal injection attempts went wrong, leading to her to be taken to hospital where she remains 'critical'.
Strada will leave his role this month after being the residing commissioner of Tennessee's Department of Correction for the past three years, and also in the role when the May execution of Tony Carruthers, was called off due to problems finding a vein for his lethal injection.
Pike has been locked up since 1996 after killing her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when she was 18 at the time. She had allegedly killed Slemmer in Knoxville in a jealous rage.
Prosecutors also said a pentagram was carved on Slemmer's body, and that Pike took a piece of her skull with her as a souvenir following the killing.
James Holt