Our Take: Christa Pike, thunderc***ing moths & who is Chris Wood?!

Chris Spyrou (0:06)

Hello, hello, hello. It is I, hostile interviewer, Chris Wood here.

And who's sitting opposite me? Who's sitting opposite me?

Sacha Barbour Gatt (0:17)

I'm just regular old Sach.

Chris Spyrou (0:20)

We'll give you the context to that comment and why I'm referring to myself in that way in a little bit, but not just yet. There's a hook and tease for you.

Welcome to The, Our Saturday Offering, Our Take. I was going to say The Weekend Briefing. It just really jumped into me, but it's not Our Take. I am Chris Spyrou, our percent media Sacha Barbour Gatt. Hello. Like she said, we are the hosts of The Briefing. And we bring you this weekend offering every Saturday where we sit back, you know, we kick our shoes off, which we don't, we take our ties off, which we don't have.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (0:49)

The lights are low today.

Chris Spyrou (0:51)

The lights are low today. And we've, we clicked the button that said yellow, but it's more of like a-

Sacha Barbour Gatt (0:56)

Orange.

I said I feel like I'm in the window of a- Because this studio has black curtains.

Chris Spyrou (1:02)

It does.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (1:02)

And we've got this lovely orange mood lighting from the ceilings. I feel like I'm in an Amsterdam window, if you know, you know.

Chris Spyrou (1:08)

Yeah, if you know, you know. And we actually do have one of those very large windows at the front of the studio. And look, we were dancing in front of it before.

It is what it is. Now, look, this is where we kick back. We talk about the week that was what we made of it, what you listening made of it. We debrief a story, a story that we may have argued about, a story that we might not have gotten to during the week, which is this week's debriefing.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (1:28)

And it's a doozy.

Chris Spyrou (1:29)

Yeah. We also open up our inbox. We go through some of your DMs, comments and reactions to the stories that we've put out and the interviews that we've done.

We of course do our weekend quiz and the weekend list where we recommend what to watch, see, do, eat and listen to. But first, let's kick it off with this week's debriefing.

Brett Waddelton (1:49)

Convicted murderer Christa Pike is tonight awake and speaking.

SPEAKER_4 (1:52)

Missy prison officials gave her two doses of lethal injection.

Chris Spyrou (1:56)

It didn't kill her.

SPEAKER_4 (1:57)

But that execution failed.

Brett Waddelton (1:59)

Surviving two doses of a lethal injection, at least seven needles in her arm.

SPEAKER_4 (2:02)

The authorities have not yet said whether they will attempt another execution.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (2:07)

This story is...

It kind of leaves me breathless and speechless and not in a good way. Like, it is just an absolutely shocking story. Now we haven't managed to get to it this week. I did cover it last week while you were away in headlines. But for various reasons, it just... We haven't been able to include it in headlines or in a deep dive this week. But there have been many updates on the story of Christa Pike. But just to quickly recap how we got here, 50-year-old Christa Pike was scheduled to be executed in Nashville, Tennessee at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution at 10 AM on September 30 So that was October 1, Australian Eastern Standard Time. That was the last week before daylight saving kicked in for some states. Now, it was delayed multiple times due to legal appeals, but then she was taken in. They administered the first dose and it didn't work. Witnesses who were journalists reported hearing her breathing, snoring. She even spoke at one point.

Then they decided to try again. That second attempt also failed. And that was when authorities went, we actually don't have the protocol past this point. We have to stop and we have to get her medical treatment. She was rushed to hospital. She's in a critical condition. In the days since, so just in the last couple of days, she's woken up. We heard she was actually up and walking. Then Thursday, our time, we heard from her lawyer who said, Christa is angry and confused after regaining consciousness. Apparently, her first words were something along the lines of, where am I and who are you?

She can't speak properly, she can't swallow properly, like she is ill, but she's alive. And it has just shocked the world. It's a crazy story.

Chris Spyrou (3:55)

Yeah. I mean, the context of how she got here is that she was convicted of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder back in 1996 She was 18 years old at the time and she had killed her classmate, Colleen Slemmer. Now she's been on death row all this time. So all the way back from 1996 to now, she's been on death row 30 years.