Christa Pike Helped Find the Vein — and They Still Failed

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke.

Tony Brueski (0:08)

What happened on September 30th in Tennessee wasn't just a system failure, it was a room full of real people living through something none of them were prepared for. Christina Pike, the woman convicted of torturing and murdering Colleen Slemmer, 21 years ago, tried to help the IV team find a vein in her own arm.

The victim's mother, May Martinez, was reportedly in or near that witness room when the execution collapsed around her, and somewhere in that chamber, the doctor who had already failed once was failing again. While corrections officers, paramedics and witnesses watched it happen in real time. Robin Dreeke, retired FBI Special Agent, Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program with us to help us break down the psychology of what is going on with all this, and the human cost of those who are alive, who didn't commit the crimes, but are affected by all of this. I mean, according to her attorneys, Christina Pike actually tried to help the IV team find the vein. She cooperated with the people who were there to end her life, guided them, worked with them, and they still couldn't get the needle straight. You spent your career reading people in high-stake situations. Robin, what's happening psychologically with a person helping the people trying to kill her? I mean, shouldn't they have just given her a gun and left the room and said, you want to do it yourself? Maybe that should be a method that we go to of like self-elimination, that nobody's feeling guilty.

Robin Dreeke (1:41)

Yeah, she probably would have. That's just a human being that resolved. She came to peace with what was going to happen and she was ready for it. And whatever methodology and belief system she put into place to be accepting of it, she did. So, and she was ready for it.

And it's amazing just even thinking about the hypocrisy of everything that's going on here. So, she's scheduled for execution. They botch the execution, but they have medical people on site in case she doesn't die. And so, then they take her to an hospital and now they're under the Hippocratic oath to keep her alive.

Tony Brueski (2:24)

At what point is it not dead enough? At what point is it like, well, if we just let her sit here, she'll... I mean, I wonder where the bar is. I don't know.

I don't think anybody does. I just think...

Robin Dreeke (2:36)

At what point do you... I mean, so...

Because, again, you can't be in the room for it. And obviously, the secrecy behind it and everything. But like you said, the victims' parents and loved ones are sitting there watching this thing. I mean, it's so hard to think of being a humanitarian to save the life that was supposed to end, but they're suffering. And the mind-warm you're going through on this case is just...

Tony Brueski (3:01)

I'm thinking about it hard. What pisses me off so much about this whole thing is... I mean, it's not so much... I mean, it's a whole damn thing. But it's the pain for somebody like May Martinez, who lost her daughter Colleen in 1995 So when the infrastructure, when the bureaucratic people, when the governor, well, it's fine, that's not going to affect this, when the judge is like, oh, it's okay, whatever, we're going to make this work. We'll get it.

And we're just killing somebody.

They are not remotely considering the other human beings involved in this equation, the families who've waited 31 years for this sentence to be carried out. So when they're flippant with their, well, he failed at that one, yeah, let's hire him again. You know who it's affecting more than the person who's trying to kill these people? The people who've already gone through hell, the people who've already been victimized. And you're supposed to be the advocate here, carrying out the penalty phase of which you found this person guilty. But you can't quite do that right. She was reportedly in or near that witness room on September 30th. She came to watch the state fulfill its promise or that's what she was expecting to have happen. And instead she watched it all fall apart. She's been through the appeals, the delays, the legal fights for three decades. And now she has to go home and wait again with no date, no timeline and no guarantee. That'll work the next time either. I mean, what kind of damage does that kind of prolonged broken promise from the system actually do to a family that just wants to see the system carry out the justice that it says it's going to do?