Christa Pike 'angry and confused' when she woke up after Tennessee's failed execution as victim's mom gives dejected statement

Death row inmate Christa Pike was 'angry and confused' when she woke up in a hospital following a botched execution attempt at a Tennessee prison.

Pike, 50, was meant to be put to death last week when she received two lethal doses of pentobarbital for the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer.

She survived the execution attempt and was rushed to a local hospital, where she now remains conscious and shackled to a bed. 

'She is angry and confused about everything right now,' her lawyer, Randy Spivey said on Wednesday. 'She is very aware that the state tried to execute her.'

It now remains unclear what may happen to Pike, who had been on death row for 30 years, as Tennessee state law does not include a provision for a convict surviving two doses of the pentobarbital. 

Slemmer's mother May Martinez, however, suggested that the state would not make another attempt to execute her daughter's killer, WSMV reports.

When she was then asked what her preference would be for Pike's ultimate fate, she simply replied: 'It doesn't matter what I think. They're going to do what they're going to do.' 

Martinez had been watching in horror at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, when Pike was left snoring despite the lethal injection.

Christa Pike, 50, is conscious following a botched execution attempt in Tennessee last week

May Martinez, the mother of Pike's victim Colleen Slemmer, was left dejected by the news

'It was a mess,' Martinez told NBC News in the aftermath. 'They went to try to execute her and she didn't die.'

For several days following the failed execution attempt, Martinez refused to eat and could not speak through her tears, her granddaughter, Morgan Seeley, told WSMV.

'She wanted to get justice,' Seeley said of her grandmother. '[Pike] serving, being in prison was not justice.'

Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, had lured Slemmer into a wooded area in January 1995 before they tortured her to death.

An accomplice, Shadolla Peterson, was on lookout as the pair carved a pentagram into the teen's chest, police evidence showed.

Pike also took a piece of her skull as a souvenir, according to investigators.

Slemmer attempted to run for her life but the couple captured her again and continued the gruesome torture that lasted about 30 minutes to an hour, Pike estimated.

Pike and Shipp were both found guilty of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to death, and he received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

Pike has been on death row for 30 years after she was convicted of the 1995 murder of Slemmer (pictured) a classmate at Knoxville Jobs Corp

Pike's then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp (left), and an accomplice, Shadolla Peterson (right), also helped lure Slemmer to a wooded area before the couple tortured her to death

But Pike's future now remains unclear, as Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has yet to respond to repeated requests from the killer's attorneys and death penalty objectors to commute her sentence to life in prison.

Lee, who is set to step down from his position later this month, has instead only reaffirmed his support for capital punishment.

'My responsibility is to uphold the sentences that Tennessee juries have handed down, even when it's difficult, and that is exactly what we intend to do in the days ahead,' the governor said.

In the meantime, Pike remains on a ventilator, handcuffed to a bed at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where her attorneys said she is awake and 'speaking limitedly.'

She now has a 'long road to recovery,' her lawyer Randy Spivey said Wednesday. 

'She has a blood clot in one of her arms. She has pneumonia. She is not able to swallow yet, so she has not eaten,' he said.

Spivey continued: 'She cannot move either of her arms. Both of her arms and hands are tremendously swollen, and we do not know what, if any, function she will regain.'

The governor ordered an independent investigation into Pike's case and cancelled the only other remaining lethal injection for this year

Pike is currently at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (pictured) receiving critical care, her attorneys said

The lawyers made the remarks as they fought to retain evidence from the failed execution attempt.  

'The state has made no promises that Ms Pike will not be subject to future execution,' lawyer, Luke Ihnen, said at the court hearing.

'The evidence that we are seeking to preserve now is relevant to any future challenge that she makes. We don't know what they have, because they won't tell us.

'We are frustrated that the information that the state has is repeatedly and deliberately secreted away.' 

Assistant Attorney General John Ayers, however, claimed there is no pending execution order for Pike after Governor Lee paused all further executions in the state.

Ayers also claimed that the Department of Corrections has already preserved the evidence from Pike's attempted execution, including log books, observation logs, medical waste and products, and electrocardiogram readouts have been saved.

Judge I'Ashea Myles has since ordered Tennessee officials to also preserve all of the syringes, ⁠drug packaging and lot numbers, catheters, intravenous lines and gurney restraints used in the execution attempt.

Governor Bill Lee has yet to respond to repeated requests from Pike's attorneys and death penalty objectors to commute her sentence to life in prison 

Pike had been injected by at least seven needles as medical staff attempted to give her two lethal doses of pentobarbital that left her arms 'swollen, burned, and blistered,' her attorneys previously revealed.

According to a motion filed after the botched execution, 'At one point, Ms Pike herself offered guidance on where the IV team could attempt access; one needle was bent at a 90-degree angle when it was removed.'

Her lawyers stated she was administered two sets of syringes of the lethal drug and could be heard crying, whimpering and breathing loudly throughout the process.

During the procedure, she said: 'My arm feels like it's about to burst open,' and at another point, asked: 'Does this happen like that?'

Pike's attorneys now say they believe problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.

'Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms Pike's body,' the lawyers wrote in the court filing.

Instead of 'remedying this failure,' they prepared and administered a backup set of pentobarbital syringes, they wrote.

The governor has since ordered an independent investigation into Pike's case.