10-01-26 Part One - Christa Pike Cheats Death

Red Eye Radio

The episode covers a series of high-profile news stories, beginning with the failed execution attempt of Krista Pike in Tennessee. The hosts

Key takeaways

• Krista Pike survived two doses of penobarbital during an attempted execution in Tennessee.
• A co-pilot on a Fly Dubai flight allegedly attacked a pilot, causing a significant altitude drop for passengers.

Main topics

• Failed execution of Krista Pike
• Fly Dubai cockpit attack

Notable quotes

The majority of Americans are economically illiterate.

Conclusion

A heavy news-driven episode that blends grim reports on terrorism and

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:06) Now, it's Red Eye Radio. Gary McNamara and Eric Hurley talk about everything from politics to social issues and news of the day. Whether you're up late or you're just starting your day, welcome to the show. From the Relief Factor Studios, this is Red Eye Radio. Speaker 4 (0:26) All across America, we are Red Eye Radio. He is Eric Hurley and I'm Gary McNamara. So much to talk about today. By the way, some incredible polling numbers. Coming up here in just a little bit, poll on economics. And it says what we have always said, the majority of Americans are economically illiterate. We'll get to that coming up here in just a little bit. But man, what a story this is coming out of Tennessee. So many questions here. And this is the, I'll just read the headline from CBS. Tennessee's attempt to execute Krista Pike using lethal injection. Fails. Speaker 4 (1:08) Tennessee officials say Wednesday night they were unable to carry out the execution of Krista Pike, according to an emergency motion filed by her attorneys and media witnesses. She has been transported to an area hospital. Pike was slated to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in the last 200 years when the Supreme Court ruled earlier Wednesday that her execution could proceed. According to media witnesses, authorities appeared to give Pike two doses of penobarbital and she was still awake and snoring more than 40 minutes after the last dose. The Associated Press reported at 8 53 p.m local time there was an announcement to escort media witnesses out of the area. An emergency motion was filed by her attorneys with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee to halt the execution. According to the motion, Pike had not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and was audibly snoring. Her attorneys noted that the curtain in the execution chamber had gone down twice. Now, nowhere do they say that, they don't say, you know, how the U.S. District Court, the Eastern District of Tennessee, how they responded, and if that's the reason she went to the hospital or that was the decision of, you know, the prison officials. Right. I don't know that here. Speaker 3 (2:24) There was a reporter from WKRN, Tori Gessner, who heard Pike say at one point, My arm feels like it's about to bust. One spot is really throbbing. That is consistent with maybe an IV not being fully in or being administered correctly. Anybody who's had an IV, that actually happened to me back in 2019. And my right arm just started to swell, you know, because the fluid was staying in the arm. I don't know if that's what happened here, but it's consistent with something like that. And the question would be, then what happens from here? Speaker 4 (3:13) In a statement, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said it followed every step of the state's lawful established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office. The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Krista Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility. Her lawyer said tonight the state of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. I'm sorry. Speaker 4 (3:55) Pike's attorney said in a statement provided to CBS News, we take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true. Difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pendulobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under the protocol that remains veiled in secrecy. Chris is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed of her condition. It looks like here that the Department of Corrections said, This is a protocol. It didn't work. She goes to the hospital. It didn't look like it because nowhere do they say that the court ordered this. Right. That ordered Speaker 3 (4:32) her to go to the hospital. Speaker 4 (4:34) Order her to go to the hospital. Yeah. It's not in this story that I have that was updated in about 45 minutes. Well, I Speaker 3 (4:39) mean, you have no other directives. If this is the protocol, you followed protocol and the person is still alive. Speaker 3 (4:48) then I would think this is part of protocol for that, at least that prison system or that state, I don't know. Because there's nothing else you can do. You followed the protocol. Nothing additional can be done to fully carry out the execution. Speaker 3 (5:11) So what happens from Speaker 4 (5:12) here is the question. Just so you know, I mean, the crime was absolutely as heinous as you could get. She was 18 at the time. Right. This goes back to 1995. She's been incarcerated since then for the murder that year of her former classmate, Colleen Slemmer. According to court records, Pike and Slemmer were students at a Job Corps center in Knoxville when Pike, then 18, tortured and killed her. There were accomplices, by the way. allegedly over comments that Slemmer made about her relationship. Pike's boyfriend and another friend helped carry out the attack and the murder. Now, it was, I mean, it was, the specifics of it are just, you know, brutal. They are. They tortured her for over an hour before they killed her, carved stuff into her chest, apparently, while she was alive. smashed her head with a rock and then pike took as a souvenir part of slemmer's skull yeah And so this was, again, when you look at this, this is 30 years that it took to get to this particular point. And that's what the filing was all about, her mental state back then, that it's been 30 years, she's been punished enough, you name it. I mean, everything was used not to do this, but you wonder, you look at this and you say, how? Speaker 4 (6:44) How do you get it wrong? Right. And I'm talking about just the process of doing it. Because you have to. I know it sounds morbid. Speaker 4 (6:59) But when it comes to execution, you've got to go through every single scenario. And we know that not only does the legislature do it, but medical groups and Department of Corrections all over the country do it. But this is going to be the biggest story, and this brings back the death penalty again. Probably will bring back the death penalty as a story like we haven't seen in a long, long time. Probably since the 90s when it was, you know, late 80s, early 90s. where it was just, you know, the death penalty was one of the major topics. It really hasn't been for a significant period of time. Speaker 3 (7:36) Yeah, it's interesting because if the defense here had brought up the concerns of administering, in her own particular case, administering IVs, collapsed veins, small veins, things like this. then did the state not account for that or is there a procedure or a protocol where the state does account for that and says, all right, this is why we do it this way. This is why we do it in a two-step process. I don't know. Again, I've been in a hospital where the IV wasn't administered properly. The fluid was just staying right there, basically right under my skin on top of the muscle. And it was just bloating up. You hear a reporter says that she said her arm was throbbing and that it was growing in size, basically. And so that is consistent with it not going into the vein. But the body at some point, I would think, would absorb it, the pentobarbital. But I don't know. And so I don't know what happens overnight. Because if this turns out to be where the body eventually absorbs it and she passes, this is going to be a point of contention with the process, as you mentioned, all over again. It already is. But that will further excel this conversation. Speaker 3 (9:21) nationally on on the death penalty i mean there's and Speaker 4 (9:25) the methods of you know what one one of the things with the the death penalty because i mean for talk radio was a topic for just years upon years upon years upon years yeah Speaker 3 (9:35) was you know Speaker 4 (9:36) if you aren't sure you know if you're not 100 sure you know that that person you know killed that person you Speaker 3 (9:47) know if Speaker 4 (9:47) it's circumstantial evidence right Well, she admitted it. There's no doubt that she killed her. There's no doubt at all that she did what she did. In fact, from what I remember, she confessed to doing it. So that was never in question. That might have been brought up early on, but I didn't see any of her attorneys arguing that there was circumstantial evidence or she didn't do it or whatever. Speaker 3 (10:19) I think it more surrounded her age, the influence by others, and, you know, this almost cult-like with her friends type of carrying out this attack on the victim. Speaker 3 (10:35) And so, you know, that's what you would do if the evidence was overwhelming. And especially if your client had a confession, then you're going to go for the fact that she's 18, she's just a child, she's influenced by others, anything at the very least to avoid the death penalty. But that didn't happen. There was a stay. And then the Supreme Court recently and the Supreme Court overrode that stay. Speaker 4 (11:08) Yeah, there's a stay. Yes. Yesterday. I can't remember if we were on the air or not. But there's a stay yesterday and just hours later, the Supreme Court Speaker 3 (11:17) overrode that and said, no, you know, you can do it. And so now here we are in a very disturbing situation. Speaker 3 (11:32) You know, and the question with. What if she lives? Speaker 4 (11:37) Well, you know, some of the interesting comments that I've seen from people, especially on social media, was, yeah, it was a heinous crime, life without prison, but isn't it torture to wait 30 years? Well, it's not like the state waited 30 years to do it. It was because her lawyers filed appeal after appeal after appeal after appeal. But it seems to be, well, it really doesn't matter. No matter what the situation, is it cruel and unusual punishment not to execute the person necessarily, but to make them wait 30 years before you do it, even if the lawyers are the ones, her lawyers are the ones that caused it, which I found interesting. Speaker 3 (12:23) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that conversation's been around for a while. In Texas, we have shortened the appeals process. Speaker 3 (12:32) So that happened, gosh, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago. Ron White actually made a joke about it. In my Texas or in my state, we put in a fast lane. Other states are trying to do away with the death penalty. In my state, they put in a fast lane. But the idea is because there was this back and forth of, well, we shouldn't pay for the prison system to feed them and house them. because it's more expensive and they deserve the death penalty. Well, the death penalty, because of the appeals process, actually is more expensive for the state. Speaker 4 (13:17) In this case, without question. In this case, yeah. Speaker 3 (13:20) And I think that's, I don't recall the legislative process in Texas that shortened the appeals process, but I think that was part of the concern, if I remember correctly, of saying, look. You know, you can only do this for so long. I am a proponent of making sure that, you know, I mean, again, you want to make sure they're absolutely guilty, you know, and also are aware of what they did. Speaker 3 (13:53) Do you want to make sure that they are of a proper mind, that they knew right from wrong, essentially? And that's been part of the conversation. Speaker 4 (14:03) Well, you know, we had talked about the Clancy situation. We said, well, look, the reality is nobody, as you've said many times, nobody can get inside the brain. Right. And so if you can't get inside the brain, it's not whether she's found guilty by... you know, or not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty. Right. The thing is, it doesn't matter either way. You never get out of an instant of either a jail or an institution. Right. That has to be the standard. Yeah. Because we're all debating what we don't know is inside of a mind. Speaker 3 (14:43) Right. And so Speaker 4 (14:45) the solution is you commit a heinous murder. You commit what is viewed as capital murder. And it doesn't matter whether you're insane or not. There should be no therapy that puts you out on the street 10 years later. Exactly. Medical professionals Speaker 3 (15:04) have debates about this kind of stuff all the time. In fact, are often witnesses for both sides of a case. But you can't. It is, as you just mentioned, as we talked about. it's impossible to know what was not only what goes through a person's mind at any given moment, but especially more precisely what was in that person's mind, what was their state of mind at the time that they committed the murders. And that's what you have to get into. Speaker 4 (15:37) Because the first role of government, because you can debate all you want about what the situation should be with this person and whether you could rehabilitate it. To me, that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the government's responsibility to protect the public from the worst criminals, irrespective of the reason that they did it. Right. Because when we're talking about you've been found guilty, that's not, you know, of first-degree premeditated capital murder. Right. Well, you've been found guilty. There is no self-defense argument here. Speaker 3 (16:09) Right. Right. And Speaker 4 (16:11) at that point, it doesn't matter. They stay in prison forever. Yes. They don't get out. Speaker 3 (16:16) Right. Speaker 4 (16:18) That's why it's called capital murder. Right. It's the worst murder that you can commit. It's a heinous murder. And so the first role of government is to protect the public at that point. Everything else is way down the list. Speaker 3 (16:33) Yes. They must be separated from society. Speaker 4 (16:36) We Speaker 3 (16:37) are Rudd Eye Radio. Brought to you by Hotshot Secrets. Speaker 1 (16:40) Hi, I'm Jen Loomis, a transport safety expert at J.J. Keller. Compliance, safety, accountability. is the FMCSA Safety Compliance and Enforcement Program. Its goal is to hold motor carriers and drivers accountable for highway safety. CSA does this by assessing the safety performance of motor carriers and drivers. Motor carriers are assigned a score. The carrier is then grouped with other carriers who have had a similar number of safety events. Carrier scores within the group are then ranked. Low scores are better. So carriers with the highest scores are those that are most likely to be targeted for intervention by the FMCSA. Interventions range in severity and may include warning letters, roadside, off-site, or on-site inspections, civil penalties, or operation out-of-service orders. This tip was brought to you by J.J. Keller & Associates. Visit us at jjkeller.com. Speaker 2 (17:28) Coming up, more with Gary McNamara and Eric Harley. It's Red Eye Radio. Speaker 4 (17:57) We are Red Eye Radio. He is Eric Hurley and I'm Gary McNamara. Coming up from the bottom of the hour, the terrorist attack on that Dubai airliner going to Israel. We will get to that coming up here in a little bit. You saw that the FBI stopped a plot to attack the Texas Capitol building. Speaker 3 (18:15) Yeah. Speaker 4 (18:15) And that was because this guy was, again, ticked off at Israel. Speaker 3 (18:19) Right. Right. Speaker 4 (18:20) So, we'll get to all of those coming up. Plus, some incredible... polling out there on a number of issues first economics you know you look at you know what one thing people haven't talked about the last three polls of the minnesota governor's race Speaker 4