A US death row inmate is in “critical condition” after surviving two lethal injections.
Convicted killer Christa Pike was due to receive her sentencing after US courts performed a double U-turn on whether the execution would go ahead.
It would mark the first time in 200 years a woman was killed on death row in Tennessee.
Pike, who carved pentagrams into her victim’s neck and chest after luring her into the woods, was due to be killed on Wednesday.
But the execution was postponed after the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit approved a last-minute request for a stay of execution.
In 1995, when she was 17 years old, Pike tortured and murdered classmate Colleen Slemmer with her boyfriend in Knoxville.
The teenage victim was later discovered with a Satanic symbol carved into her body.
The next year, Pike received the death penalty, condemning her to become the first woman to be executed by the US state in 206 years.
The 50-year-old’s rescheduled execution is now set to take place on Thursday | REUTERSIn a staggering twist, the killer has already survived two doses of the lethal drug, her lawyer said in the early hours of Thursday morning, UK time.
Witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring,” court documents revealed.
Last night, lawyers said Pike “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat,” and that curtains to the death chamber “have gone down twice”.
Journalists who saw the attempted execution said they heard snoring and complaints from Pike about pain.
They added that they saw her kicking her feet so often that she knocked off the sheets laid over her.
Pike is now believed to be in critical condition.
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