Christa Pike's prognosis still unclear after failed execution, lawyer says

US murderer Christa Pike remains critically ill in hospital and her prognosis is still unclear after her failed execution, her lawyer has stated on Sunday.

Key points

• Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer in 1995.
• Pike, 50, was sentenced to death after her conviction for murdering Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
• Speaking to CNN on Sunday morning, Pike's lawyer Stephen Ferrell remarked doctors were still trying to clear two doses of pentobarbital from her body.
• She survived two execution attempts on Wednesday, and was transferred to a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.
• I interviewed Christa Pike 20 years ago – I can't stop thinking regarding her.

Ferrell remarked: "She's still in the hospital, on a ventilator, critically ill, we really don't know the prognosis yet, and may not know for several days."

He didn't believe she had regained consciousness at any point, adding that he has been receiving updates through her medical power of attorney rather than consulting directly with doctors.

He has not been in to see her. "She is guarded. I'm not sure who may have seen her, " he remarked.

Authorities have not yet remarked whether they will try again to execute Pike. They have additionally not offered an explanation for what went wrong. But Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all executions for the rest of the year – and the head of prisons in the state remarked he would resign on Saturday.

"If she recovers – she may not fully recover – and there may be problems concerning her competence. I mean, we just don't know any of this, " Ferrell remarked. "We have had no discussions regarding this. The Tennessee attorney general's office so far has not given us any indications of what their intentions will be."

What happened in the failed execution of Christa Pike – and what next?

He called on the governor to commute her death sentence to a life sentence "at the very least". "She has endured a torturous attempt at executing her, " he remarked. "She's spent over 30 years in prison, most of that in solitary confinement."

"We don't know right now – and we may never know – what sort of torture she endured during that process."

She was sentenced to death the after year after a media frenzy around the killing in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Slemmer's mother May Martinez travelled to Nashville for the execution. It moved ahead despite last-minute legal challenges.

Martinez, who backed Pike's death sentence, informed local news outlet WJXX that she "broke down in tears" after finding out it was not successful.

"I think that the state owes me a big apology, " she remarked.

In practice, the state's Department of Correction has defended the employ of lethal injections, saying "the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out".

Pike's lawyers previously cautioned that her medical history and anatomy – including thrombocytosis (a blood-clotting condition) and small veins – meant there was a risk she would experience "unnecessary" pain and suffering during a lethal injection.

Taken together, the developments around christa Pike' s prognosis still unclear after failed execution, lawyer says point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.