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As questions remain as to what happens next for Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike after a botched execution attempt last week, her accomplice and former boyfriend has at least another five years before his next parole hearing in the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Tadaryl Shipp, 49, was 17 years old when he, Pike and another person tortured and killed Slemmer, their classmate from a vocational school, in a crime with "satanic elements" that still haunts investigators 31 years later. Prosecutors accused Shipp of holding Slemmer down when she tried to escape her attackers...

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike has been discharged from the hospital and returned to prison after surviving a botched lethal injection that left her with serious medical complications, her attorneys announced. Pike, who survived two doses of the execution drug pentobarbital on Sept. 30, is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been housed for more than 30 years, according to a joint statement from her legal team. "Christa Pike was discharged from a local hospital and is now at Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center where she has been housed for more than 30 years,"...

Christa Pike, a Tennessee inmate who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, is conscious and speaking as she continues to receive medical care at a hospital, according to a statement from her attorneys. “Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” her attorneys said in a statement. Pike survived two ostensibly lethal doses of pentobarbital last week...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — An ambulance is designed to save a life, but Wednesday night, one was called to Riverbend Maximum Security Prison after the State of Tennessee tried to end one. The failed execution of Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death for brutally torturing and murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995, has raised a lot of questions, including why prison officials called emergency medical services so Pike could receive lifesaving care after attempting to execute her just minutes prior. Pike received two doses of the lethal drug, pentobarbital and survived on Wednesday. According to Pike’s attorneys,...

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike — who is now in the hospital after a botched execution — was given the all-female lethal injection team she had requested, her attorneys revealed on Thursday. “What I saw was consistent with that,” Randy Spivey said in response to a question about whether the execution staff was made up solely of women, according to a report by the New York Post. Pike, who was supposed to become the first woman to be put to death in Tennessee since 1819, has instead become the first woman to survive lethal injection drugs during an execution...

Christa Pike shouldn’t still be breathing. She survived two injections of lethal drugs in a harrowing failed execution by the state of Tennessee, raising questions about how the procedure was carried out and how it went wrong. Nearly 24 hours after Pike was set to be put to death for a murder she committed when she was 18, she remains in critical condition and is receiving care, her lawyers said Thursday afternoon. Her prognosis is unclear, said Randall Spivey, one of her lawyers. Neither he nor another lawyer, Stephen Ferrell, who spoke with reporters, said he had seen her in...

Christa Pike has “horrible nightmares.” Her “nerves are shredded.” In eight days, the 50-year-old who killed her friend when she was a teenager will have her worst nightmares realized inside the execution chamber in Nashville, Tennessee. Pike is set to become the first woman put to death in Tennessee since 1819 if Governor Bill Lee does not put a stop to the scheduled execution before 10 a.m. local time on September 30.

Thomas Francis holds up the record pike he pulled from Hayden Lake on Tuesday. Photo by Taylor Hale. Thomas Francis knew it was no ordinary pike at the end of his line in Hayden Lake on Tuesday. “It was like a freight train,” he said. “She hit it good.” He was used to catching 20 or 30 pounders and they put up a good fight. But this was different. “She dug herself into the bottom and didn’t want to come up,” Francis said. Slowly, she did. In another five minutes, the pike was netted and on board. Francis took...

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has updated its database on tap water in the United States, revealing where testing has detected potentially deadly pollutants in the nation’s water systems. First published in 2005, the database was most recently updated in 2018. “We’re collecting testing data from almost 50,000 water utilities nationwide,” said Sydney Evans, a science analyst with EWG, in an interview with The Epoch Times. In just one state—Illinois—EWG’s database shows that many water utilities exceeded the legal limits of arsenic, radium, and total trihalomethanes (TTHMS), among other chemicals. In its entry for the City of Chicago’s water system,...

The mayor, more than half of the D.C. Council, and the D.C. attorney general have joined activists in calling for the removal of a statue of a Confederate general from federal land in Judiciary Square. "Albert Pike was a strong proponent of slavery and fought to try to preserve that in this country. Regardless of what he did in other parts of his life, it's inappropriate to honor him," says At-large Councilmember David Grosso, who sent a letter today to the acting director of the National Park Service calling for a statue of Pike at 3rd and D streets NW...

SHOULD CHRISTIANS FIGHT COMMUNISM? Yes or No? By: Henry R. Pike Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. (Pas. 33:12) Before any attempt is made to answer this question, we must first clearly understand the term "Christian." Let's see what a Christian is not, then what a Christian is. A true Christian is not a "non-Jew, a do-gooder, a nice guy, one who goes to a church building, pays dues, sings hymns, provides for his family, etc." You should go to a place where God's word is faithfully preached and practiced, but going into a church building wil...

Despite accounts to the contrary, Pike County Commissioner and Marine veteran Richard Caridi never served in Vietnam. In the heart of political season, papers have surfaced detailing his record of service in the Marines. Caridi is running for reelection as a Republican Pike County commissioner....

The Greentown man who used duct tape to bind his dog's feet together and tightly tape her muzzle shut is still a Pike County employee. Russell Seese, 27, is a resource conservationist at the Pike County Conservation District, earning $32,350 a year. He was hired June 2011. On March 1, a Pennsylvania Humane Society police officer was called to Seese's home by a state police trooper. Seese had admitted to police that he had tortured his dog, Lexi, a tan, female Labrador mix. On Feb. 28, Seese used duct tape to bind together the dog's front legs and back legs,...

Recently, I made a big deal out of the fact that on Tuesday, March 21, 2012, Pike County, Illinois passed a voter initiative that rejected the concealed carry restrictions of state law-in Pike County. When that story ran, several readers - including a some very irritated Illinois attorneys, were quick to point out that a voter initiative had no force of law. Until today, their point hasn't been addressed. That's because we couldn't get any insight into the whole state/local law point. First, let's shuck this down to the cob on a key question: can I now carry a concealed...

A former Cayuga County resident serving an 18-to-40-year state prison sentence for rape and sodomy is on a heart donor list and is undergoing a heart transplant evaluation at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester. Coxsackie Correctional Facility inmate Kenneth L. Pike was flown from Albany to Rochester Monday, and hospital officials confirmed that a Kenneth Pike is at the hospital and is listed in guarded condition. Pike is being evaluated for a heart transplant, is on the donor list and will most likely die without the procedure. the average first-year cost of a heart transplant comes in at $787,700. In...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- A California non-profit is urging sponsors to pull their ads from Fox News Channel, because of "a would-be assassin inspired by" Fox personality Glenn Beck. The Tides Foundation, which says it promotes human rights, justice, and a healthy, sustainable environment, has come in for frequent criticism on Beck's show. A suspect in a July 28 shootout with police, Byron Williams, told police in an affidavit he had intended to go to the Tides Foundation's office in San Francisco and kill founder and Chief Executive Officer Drummond Pike.

A mysterious predator which devours adult ducks by pulling them beneath the water at a popular beauty spot has been nicknamed the "Lough Ness Monster" by locals. The creature is believed to have killed at least three fully-grown birds at the lake, leaving only a smattering of feathers as evidence of the crimes. Witnesses have so far been unable to identify the perpetrator, although pike, catfish and even mink have been suggested as possible culprits. Local councillors are now warning schoolchildren not to go paddling at the site, and dog owners have been being asked not to let smaller animals...

Idaho's Democrat Senator Frank Church[i] was one of my heroes when I was in high school. Church wrote a letter of recommendation for me to Harvard and offered to nominate me to an appointment to any of the U.S. military academies. In the summer of 1971, he took me to lunch in the dining room of the United States Senate, where, for the first time in my life, I tasted French onion soup[ii]. He asked me if I would like to serve as an intern in his office in Washington, D.C. when I graduated from high school. (It was an...

(Frankfort - September 24, 2009) State Auditor Crit Luallen today released the 2008 Pike County Fiscal Court audit, which refers an issue concerning a county employee to the US Attorney’s Office, Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, Kentucky Retirement Systems and county attorney. The audit found that the county’s financial statements, in all material respects, fairly present the county’s assets, liabilities, and equity arising from cash transactions and revenues received and expenditures paid in conformity with the modified cash basis of accounting. As part of the audit process, the Auditor must comment on non-compliance with laws, regulations, contracts and grants. The Auditor...

While the exact route of the Great Wagon Road has not been preserved, as such, we know that in Virginia and West Virginia, from the Potomac to the Roanoke Valley, it is either under or parallel to Route U.S. 11. Because the highway has been regraded, straightened, widened, and sometimes relocated and sometimes expanded to three and four lanes, it is often hard to know whether you are on, or simply driving parallel to, the Great Wagon Road. Except . . . there are places where you can be relatively certain that you are on the old road. [Pictures]