May Martinez, the mother of Christa Pike’s victim, has described the scene inside the execution chamber yesterday as “a mess” after witnessing the Tennessee inmate survive two rounds of lethal injection.
Martinez traveled from Florida to Nashville this week to witness the execution of Pike,n who was convicted in 1996 of murdering her daughter, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, in Knoxville in 1995. Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were found to have beaten and killed Slemmer after Pike accused her of trying to steal her boyfriend.
Speaking to NBC News in a phone interview Thursday morning, Martinez said the execution did not go as expected. “They went to try to execute her, and she didn’t die,” she said.
