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Christa Pike's lawyers believed the Tennessee death row inmate was "brain dead" and expected her to be taken off life support before she unexpectedly woke up Tuesday, nearly a week after the state failed two attempts to lethally inject her.
"To the shock of everyone, including me, including her team and including the medical team, Christa woke up and began talking," Randy Spivey, one of her attorneys, told reporters Wednesday after a court hearing in Nashville.
"I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning, but what we do know is that Christa has a long road to recovery," he added.
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Instead, Pike regained consciousness after having been kept on life support since her botched execution on Sept. 30, he said.
Her first words upon waking were "Where am I?" and "Who are you?" according to Spivey, who said Pike remains confused and faces a lengthy recovery.
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She has pneumonia, cannot swallow and has a blood clot in one arm, he said. He described her hands as looking "like if you were to blow up a surgical glove."
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He said it remained unclear whether she would ever regain the use of her arms.
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The update came after Davidson County Chancery Court Judge I'Ashea Myles granted Pike's emergency motion to preserve evidence connected to the failed execution Wednesday.
She ordered the Tennessee Department of Correction to retain physical evidence including needles, IV lines, package labels and drugs — as well as text messages, encrypted communications, photographs and recordings.
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She specifically said messages on apps like Signal need to be preserved.
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"To any extent that any information has already been, any information or any evidence has already been discarded, deleted, destroyed or no longer exists, I want TDOC to take an affirmative step, to try to claw back that information," she said.
Pike's future remains unclear. Gov. Bill Lee has halted Tennessee executions for the remainder of 2026 while the state investigates what went wrong last week.
Assistant Attorney General Will Ayers declined to predict whether the state would seek another death warrant in court Wednesday. Her attorneys have asked for her sentence to be commuted to life in prison without parole.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Two others involved in the slaying received lesser sentences — one who was 17 at the time and another who testified on behalf of the state as part of a plea deal.
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