Death Row Inmate Christa Pike Walks But Suffers Memory Loss

Christa Pike is up and walking. That is the report coming from one of her lawyers regarding the Tennessee death row inmate who survived two doses of pentobarbital last week. Attorney Stephen Ferrell told BBC Radio 4 early Thursday that physically, quite a bit is going on inside. Her arms are very injured. She cannot use them much right now.

"She is up and walking for the first time today," Ferrell said. "But just around the room, not very far."

It remains unclear if she suffered permanent damage. Her head is somewhat foggy. Ferrell explained that she can lose her train of thought really easily. She forgets where she's going. Neither Ferrell nor a spokesperson for Pike's legal team responded to requests for comment Thursday morning.

Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist who advises the legal team, told Fox News Thursday that he believes she is still in the intensive care unit. Randy Spivey, another attorney for Pike, said outside a Nashville courthouse Wednesday that her team did not expect her to wake up. They believed she was brain dead Monday evening.

"To the shock of everyone, including me, including her team and including the medical team, Christa woke up and began talking," Spivey said. "I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning." He added that there is a long road to recovery ahead. Her first words upon waking were Where am I? and Who are you? The ordeal left her angry and confused.

Pike is believed to be the first person in modern history to survive an attempted lethal injection, according to her attorneys and experts on the death penalty. She has pneumonia. She cannot swallow. There is a blood clot in one arm. Spivey said he described her hands as looking like if you were to blow up a surgical glove. He did not know if she will ever be able to use them again.

Davidson County Chancery Court Judge I'Ashea Myles granted Pike's emergency motion to preserve evidence from the failed execution Wednesday. She ordered the Tennessee Department of Correction to retain physical evidence, including needles, IV lines, package labels and drugs. The order also covers text messages, encrypted communications, photographs and recordings. Judge Myles specifically said messages on apps like Signal need to be preserved.

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 was 17 at the time. The other testified on behalf of the state as part of a plea deal. They were all students at Knoxville's Job Corps Center, a vocational school for youths from troubled backgrounds.

Slemmer was studying computers. That was an emerging field at the time, then-Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith told Fox News Digital previously. She was a bright young woman with interest in computers. She was applying herself there. She was clearly an innocent party in this. After slashing her dozens of times, Pike and her accomplices crushed Slemmer's skull with a chunk of asphalt.

Tadaryl Shipp faces a life sentence with his next parole hearing scheduled for 2031, yet he carved pentagrams into his own chest and face. This shocking act occurred in Tennessee. A groundskeeper eventually found the scene after he thought it was just an animal carcass at first. Court records show that only when he spotted Shipp's clothes through the blood did the true horror become clear. The man involved in this case is Slemmer, though his full story remains tangled with these dark details. What happens next for Pike is currently unclear to everyone watching. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has stepped in and halted executions for the rest of this year. This decision comes right now as late-breaking news shakes the state.