Buddhist Group Supports Convicted Killer After Lethal Injection Fails

Christa Pike is still fighting for her life after a lethal injection attempt went wrong, yet new information has surfaced about the religious group standing by her side. Her spiritual advisor was Reverend Mikey Noechel, a Buddhist meditation instructor and addiction specialist based in Tennessee who entered the execution chamber with her on Wednesday.

The dark history behind Pike dates back to 1995 when she was just eighteen years old. She participated in the torture and killing of her nineteen-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in Knoxville. Authorities found the victim nude from the waist up with a Satanic pentagram carved directly into her flesh. Pike even took a piece of the skull as a souvenir.

Noechel co-directs the Wild Heart Meditation Center in Nashville, a non-profit Buddhist organization that claims to have officially adopted Pike into its community. This center was originally an affiliate of Against the Stream, a California-based group that shut down all its West Coast locations in 2018 following sexual misconduct allegations against founder Noah Levine.

It remains unclear exactly when Pike converted to Buddhism while incarcerated, but she recently invoked her new faith as a defense in a lawsuit against the state. That legal battle ultimately led to Noechel being present during the failed execution attempt on September 30.

Witness accounts describe a chaotic scene inside the execution chamber where authorities struggled to administer the drugs. Noechel stood beside Pike's gurney, speaking softly and singing a song that included the words 'I love you' while officials fought to complete the sentence. Reports say he told her to 'relax' as needles were inserted into her arm. Pike replied with a simple 'I'm trying' before the procedure stopped after at least seven unsuccessful injections.

Both Noechel and Wild Heart Meditation Center have openly opposed Pike's execution, citing Buddhist teachings that view killing as part of a violent cycle with karmic consequences. Supporters held a vigil outside the prison on Wednesday and promoted an online petition set up in 2022 to spare her life. The group posted updates on their calendar confirming they would hold a morning vigil inside the prison grounds to support both Christa and Mikey.

The Daily Mail has contacted Noechel and Wild Heart for comment regarding these events, but no response was immediately available. The organization originally launched as Against the Stream Nashville in 2010 by Dave Smith, a meditation teacher who local reporters once described as using foul language during classes with meetings labeled 'punk Buddhism.' Levine founded the national group in California before encouraging Smith to adopt the larger name after 2018. An investigator later found that Levine likely violated the core rule against sexual harm involving more than one woman.

Levine flatly rejected the accusations leveled against him and no criminal charges ever stuck, yet Against the Stream wound up closing its California locations anyway. The Nashville branch had already dropped out of the network earlier that year to become Wild Heart Meditation Center, though they issued a public statement backing the results of the Against the Stream probe.

Christa Gail Pike, now fifty years old and in critical condition, survived her botched execution. According to reports from the New York Times, she told reporters she only started using Buddhist meditation recently as a way 'train my chaotic mind.' Noechel spoke with WPLN just before the scheduled death row procedure, saying he had been advising Pike for more than two years on Metta, a Buddhist practice where you deliberately wish well for yourself and others by repeating short phrases.

Wild Heart notes that Noechel was given the Buddhist name Rogahari Sokatura, which translates to 'healer of the broken-hearted.' The center's website states he is committed to bringing the Buddha's teachings into nontraditional settings such as addiction treatment centers, jails, and a variety of other places. It remains unknown at this time whether Noechel or Wild Heart volunteered to advise Pike in spiritual matters, or if their guidance was requested by Pike or the state itself.

Buddhism, as taught by Wild Heart, is a meditation and ethics practice grounded in the historical Buddha's original instructions for ending suffering. The only difference they have incorporated into their classes is the style, holding sessions in a casual setting and using plain speech instead of conducting services inside a temple. This widely practiced religion does not believe in a Satan-like figure similar to Christians. However, Pike's statements over the past year call into question whether the convicted murderer is a fully practicing Buddhist.

She sang, groaned, and snored as the lethal injection drugs failed to kill her at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. In January, Pike sued to block Tennessee's execution rules, claiming they forced her to help plan her own death and kept her Buddhist adviser away from the chamber, which her lawyer's court filing said violated her First Amendment right to practice Buddhism. Buddhism treats intentionally helping to cause a death, including one's own, as a violation of its rule against killing. Pike's legal team argued that making her choose her method of execution forced her to take part in that killing. On August 11, a court hearing settled her request for a Buddhist adviser in the death chamber. 'The way it's done will have karmic outcomes. I'm not a fan of that. In this scenario, we're getting really good at killing, aren't we?

And that's concerning,' Noechel said on September 22. 'Putting Christa to death, there is a mind state of either hatred towards her or ignorance, believing this is going to stop something.' But here lies the strangest twist yet. Just a month after a court ruled in Pike's favor regarding her Buddhist argument that she should not be involved in planning her own execution, the 50-year-old strangely requested to be shot to death by an all-female firing squad. This demand completely contradicts her religious defense.

Colleen Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, has rejected any claim that Pike has changed. Speaking to the New York Times, she told reporters: 'Nobody could ever, ever convince me she's changed.' The stakes were incredibly high. Pike was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years. However, this botched procedure has now forced Governor Bill Lee to pause executions for the rest of 2026 while a third-party review is carried out.

At 7.37pm local time on Wednesday, she took four deep breaths during the lethal injection process and broke into song with Noechel nearby. 'Be kind and gentle to yourself and may you be at peace,' she said repeatedly, reciting the lyrics of the Buddhist meditation the spiritual advisor taught her. 'I've had numerous friends go with this dying wish: that all beings be at ease and at peace and gentle, and leaving this world and to transition into whatever happens after this,' he explained in a recent interview.

At 7.41pm, the Tennessee Department of Corrections staff gave the signal that the drug had been fully administered. Pike's eyes closed - but she was not dead. Three minutes later, witnesses said Pike spoke again to Noechel, asking, 'Does it happen like that?' while complaining about pain in her arm. She would soon fall asleep and start to snore. The spiritual advisor reportedly exited the room when Pike was supposed to have died in her sleep but was summoned back in after the 50-year-old continued to live and kept snoring.

After multiple injections, witnesses said 'her body lifted off the gurney again in a V-shape' just before 7.56pm. Ten minutes later, she 'gasped for air and her body flexed.' The execution was halted shortly after these events, and Pike is now in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville. Her attorney, Randy Spivey, told the New York Post the death row inmate may have suffered brain damage. This botched attempt leaves a community reeling from uncertainty about what truly happened inside that room.