Christa Pike Recovery Takes Unexpected Turn After Botched Execution

Tony (0:07)

Welcome to The TMZ Podcast. My name is Tony, and I'm joined by...

Netta (0:11)

Netta.

Tony (0:11)

Rhymes with Feta. Rhymes with Feta. That's how I learned your name. I would always mispronounce it, and I felt so bad every time I mispronounced it.

Netta (0:18)

No, I didn't care.

Tony (0:19)

Okay.

Netta (0:19)

Every time you did, I'm like, oh, whatever.

Tony (0:22)

We got some very interesting stories today.

Netta (0:24)

Yeah, I'm actually so excited.

Tony (0:26)

Yes, this Christa Pike story has just taken... I think this is probably the most talked-about story over the past week, that and the Cornell 7 case, but we're hearing new details from Christa Pike's lawyers that she may have avoided some severe brain damage. We'll get into that, and we'll get into Christa Pike's first words after she awoken from, I don't know if we can call it a coma or her current state, but we'll get into that. And we have a couple other stories, one of which I know you have a take on, and I certainly have a take on.

Netta (0:59)

Different takes, opposing.

Tony (1:00)

Yes, Marilyn Monroe, we found out, or there's a certain celebrity that's related to Marilyn Monroe, and it's quite interesting. Plus, Sophia Vergara is facing some crazy allegations from one of her exes. But first, Christa Pike. So Christa Pike's lawyers revealed new details about her condition following Tennessee's failed execution. And Los Angeles Magazine reporter, Warren Collin, discussed Pike's condition on TMZ's In the Know with Jackson.

Very popular here. We see all his videos on YouTube.

Netta (1:33)

With Jackson.

Tony (1:34)

Yes. And Collin said Pike's request for an iPad. So once she woke up, Pike basically requested an iPad. And she believes that Pike might want to use it to message friends, contact family, and communicate with their attorneys. What she says is a good indication that she did not suffer brain damage from this whole botched execution.

Netta (1:55)

Right.

Tony (1:55)

And I've been seeing a lot of discourse online. Like the whole...

I want to make this clear. She is an evil person, and has done some very evil stuff.

Netta (2:09)

I actually pulled it up so that we could remember. She was convicted of the brutal 1995 murder and torture of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

And at the time, Christa was the youngest woman sentenced to death in the United States. Isn't that crazy?

Tony (2:26)

That is insane. And I do want to mention, like, the stuff that...

the fact that she kept part of her skull after, she bashed it in, and it's just terrible, terrible stuff. Evil person, evil human being. And I've been seeing a lot of stuff online saying, like, well, an eye for an eye, pretty much. And there's just a lot of discourse online about what's going to happen after... So she was sentenced to death.

She... The execution didn't go through, and now she's awakened from it. And my next question is, what's next? Like, do they retry her for... I think there's going to be a whole lot of lawsuits.

I would not shock me...

Netta (3:06)

She's not getting executed anytime soon.

Tony (3:08)

Yes. That's what you have to know. And then the governor delayed and paused all executions, at least, I think, for the rest of the month.

Netta (3:15)

Yes, because this is the second now failed lethal injection in Texas, right?

Tony (3:20)

No, Tennessee. In Tennessee, sorry. Yes. And speaking of Texas, though, there was another prisoner... I actually... Let me pull that up real quick. There was another prisoner pretty much citing this case, saying, like, hey, there's concerns about lethal injection.

Let me get a delay pretty much. And honestly, like, I don't blame his lawyers for asking that. And I think this whole botched execution case really is going to bring up lethal injection. We've seen just numerous ways of execution changed over the course of, I would say, the past 200 years. We've seen death by hanging. We've seen fire in squad. We've seen an execution chair, a lethal injection. I just wonder, like, if this specific drug or substance, for one, what happened to it when it got delivered to Christa Pike's execution? And B, if that's not lethal injection, then what else?

Netta (4:13)

They want to bring back the electric chair, is what I read.

Tony (4:16)

Yeah. It wouldn't shock me if they do.

And that's also going to raise a whole bunch of moral arguments, and then a lot of people bringing up, hey, this woman did a heinous crime. It doesn't matter. She should still be put to death. So it's just very, very interesting to see what comes next.