Christa Pike's Aunt Says 'God Is in Control' Amid Calls to Halt Second Execution After Botched Lethal Injection

Carrie Ross, the aunt who helped raise Christa Pike, revealed why she believes her niece survived the botched execution in Tennessee.

“When God puts his hand on someone, God is in control. Not the Department of Corrections, not us, but God,” Ross said in a new interview, TMZ reported.

Ross said Pike shouldn’t be put through another execution attempt after surviving two doses of pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday, September 30. She pointed out that Pike went willingly to her execution, and she said it would be inhumane to force her to go through the process again.

Ross told a publication that she doesn’t excuse Pike’s crime, but she feels that commuting Pike’s sentence from death to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole would be reasonable.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, who drove 11 hours from Florida with her husband, witnessed the execution attempt and referred to it as “a mess,” TMZ reported.

Pike’s condition has improved over the last week. Her attorney Stephen Ferrell spoke about her progress on Thursday, October 8. “She is up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far,” he said. A spokesperson for her attorney Randy Spivey also said she has “taken a few steps.”

Ferrell said Pike’s arms are still wounded. “What’s been described to me is that physically there’s quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured and she’s not able to use them very much,” Ferrell explained.

Ferrell said there are both “good and bad” aspects of Pike’s mental condition. “Good that she is fairly with it, but she’s also somewhat foggy,” he noted. He added that she forgets where she’s going and loses her train of thought “really easily.” It’s uncertain whether she’ll have any permanent damage, according to Ferrell.

Pike's lawyers said that when she woke up on Tuesday, October 6, one of the first things she asked was, “Where am I and who are you?” Her lawyers also stated that she has been suffering from pneumonia and has had very limited use of her arms, and as of Wednesday’s hearing, she remained handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed.

Gov. Bill Lee has put a halt to all executions in the state pending a review of Pike’s failed lethal injection, and he also announced that Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will leave his position later this month. On Wednesday, October 7, Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles instructed the state to preserve all evidence associated with the attempted execution. Assistant Attorney General John W. Ayers told the court, “There is no pending execution order for Miss Pike.”

Luke Ihnen, one of Pike’s attorneys, said at the same hearing that “the state has made no promises that Ms. Pike will not be subject to future execution.” Pike’s legal counsel has asked Lee to commute her sentence.

Before the execution attempt, Pike’s lawyers contended that her allegations of childhood sexual abuse weren’t fully weighed during sentencing, and a federal appeals court briefly paused the execution on that issue the morning of September 30 before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to move forward.