Christa Pike's lawyers warned rare blood cancer could complicate execution, report says

Jessica Schladebeck, New York Daily News on Nov 4, 2026

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Christa Pike is reportedly suffering from a rare blood disorder linked to cancer that her attorneys previously warned could cause dangerous complications during her execution by lethal injection.

Lawyers for Pike revealed her diagnosis in court documents filed nine months before her botched execution in Tennessee, People reported. She was scheduled to be executed at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville on Sept. 30, but she survived a double dose of pentobarbital, the drug used to execute prisoners in the state.

Pike’s “platelet count is significantly elevated, likely due to a rare form of blood cancer called myeloproliferative disorder,” according to the complaint. Her lawyers noted the cancer likely triggered thrombocytosis — a condition where your body produces too many platelets — which could increase her risk of developing severe pulmonary edema, a potentially dangerous buildup of fluid in the lungs, during a lethal injection.

“A pulmonary edema is not simply painful or uncomfortable; it can create a sense of suffocating or drowning that has been likened by experts to the sensation intentionally induced by the practice of waterboarding — an unambiguous form of outright torture,” Pike’s lawyers said, per People.

The attorneys further claimed she has long had issues with her veins, writing that Pike has “a history of difficulty with blood draws and needle insertion.” They additionally complained that, given a recent change in protocol for executions in Tennessee, there would be no access to a phone during the lethal injection, which could prove dangerous should any issues occur.

Given her condition, Pike’s execution would violate the First, Eighth and 14th amendments, the complaint argued, with lawyers emphasizing that a lethal injection would be “very likely to result in unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror and disgrace.”

Pike is the first ever death row inmate to survive an execution. She was subsequently hospitalized in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where she remained unconscious and on a ventilator for nearly a week. In addition, her arms were left swollen, blistered and bruised from the lethal injection drugs.

She has since returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she spends much of her time in isolation.

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder for torturing and killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in a wooded area of the University of Tennessee agricultural campus on Jan. 12, 1995. That night, Pike, her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, and an acquaintance, Shadolla Peterson, 18, lured Slemmer to an isolated area behind the agricultural campus steam plant. There, Pike and Shipp violently tortured Slemmer before killing her, while Peterson acted as lookout.

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