Christa Pike’s victim’s mum spent 12 hours in viewing room before botched execution

Christa Pike’s victim’s mum spent 12 hours in viewing room before botched execution On Wednesday September 30 Christa Pike was set to be executed for the murder of Colleen Slemmer. A day Colleen's mother May, and her husband Raul Martinez Jr., had waited 31 years for For over three decades May Martinez has been waiting to see the woman who killed her daughter Colleen Slemmer finally be brought to justice. Christa Pike, now 50, had been on death row for the brutal murder of Colleen Slemmer in January 1995. Slemmer was killed at age 19, after being lured into an isolated area on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. Pike was convicted alongside her boyfriend in 1996, and the court heard that there was a pentagram carved into Slemmer's chest and Pike kept a bit of her skull as a souvenir. On Wednesday September 30 Pike was set to become the first woman to be executed in the US state in 200 years. A day May and her husband Raul Martinez Jr. had waited 31 years for. May and Raul drove 11 hours from their home in Florida to Nashville so that they could witness what they thought would be the final chapter in their ordeal, the execution of Christa Pike. May told PEOPLE that she and Raul arrived at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution and were put into a viewing room at 8:30 a.m. on September 30 where they would remain there for the next 12 hours. May says that they had been informed that the execution would occur at 10 a.m. that morning, but that there was a delay as they waited for judges to rule on an emergency order for a stay that was filed by Pike’s lawyers. “Finally, at about 6:30 p.m., quarter to 7, they said, ‘It’s a go,’” Raul says. “I was going to hold a picture [of her daughter] at the execution,” May notes, but says she was not able to “because the execution was so messed up.” According to witnesses in the execution chamber, the curtains separating Pike from the viewing area were closed at 7.46pm, but opened again just three minutes later at 7.49pm. Witnesses described Pike gasping and moaning as she kicked her bedsheet. One said: "Her mouth fell open a few times, and she began to loudly snore. She gasped a few times." By 8.26pm, execution witnesses reported that the second dose of pentobarbital had been administered. But Pike continued to be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at 8.53pm. Everyone in the witness room was ordered to leave and Pike was later rushed to hopsital. May and Rual said: “Well, after they told us to leave the room, we got shoved into another room, which was the commissioner’s office, and we waited an hour for him to come in and talk to us,” May says. She adds that the commissioner had little information to share beyond the fact that Pike “was taken to the hospital,” but he did not know “if she was going to be alive or dead.” Pike's lawyer Randy Spivey said on Thursday: "We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment." He added: "But we do know that she is alive right now." Her lawyers claim that the failed execution amounted to "torture", and they called for her death sentence to be commuted. Spivey said: “I’m haunted by last night. What I saw last night is not something that should ever, ever happen again.” May previously told PEOPLE she almost took justice into her own hands. May said: "“If I could have gotten in that room, I would have taken the box cutter and cut her up like she did Colleen." She later says that she does not think she will return if they try to execute Pike again, should she survive. “The whole thing was yesterday was supposed to be my justice, but I guess I failed my daughter,” May says. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has now paused all executions in the state and ordered a review into Pike's unprecedented botched execution.