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Tennessee releases written account of 911 call after Pike execution attempt
Nashville emergency officials released a written account of the call made from Riverbend prison on Sept. 30, when Christa Pike survived an attempted lethal injection. The original audio will remain confidential under state law.
Nashville emergency officials have released a written account of the 911 call made from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution after Christa Pike survived an attempted execution. The call came in at 8:40 p.m. Central time on Sept. 30, according to the Metro Nashville Department of Emergency Communications.
The department said Metro Legal determined the original audio is exempt from public disclosure under Tennessee law. Instead, it prepared a written account based on a review of the recording. The release came more than a week after the failed execution attempt.
Pike was scheduled to be executed that morning, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit temporarily halted the procedure so she could challenge the legality of her sentence. That evening, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to allow the execution to go ahead.
Tennessee administered two doses of pentobarbital, which were intended to be lethal. Pike was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center and placed on a ventilator. Her attorneys said she regained consciousness after medical staff had believed she might be brain dead. They announced Oct. 10 that she had been discharged from the hospital and returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Pike is the only woman on Tennessee’s death row. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Pike’s attorneys have argued that evidence of her childhood abuse was not adequately considered during her trial; the state has since acknowledged the abuse in court.