Christa Pike leaves hospital 10 days after failed Tennessee execution
What's next: A judge ordered Tennessee to preserve evidence from the two pentobarbital injections as lawyers push to block any new execution attempt.
Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived two lethal injections on Sept. 30, has been discharged from a hospital and returned to prison, her lawyers said. Pike, 50, is continuing to receive medical care after regaining consciousness earlier this week and beginning to speak again.
A judge on Wednesday ordered the state to preserve broad evidence tied to the failed execution, including material from the injections. At the hearing, Assistant Attorney General Will Ayers said he did not know whether Tennessee plans to try to execute Pike again.
Pike was convicted in the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville with then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp.