US death row killer Christa Pike breaks her silence after surviving a botched lethal injection while battling rare cancer

Her lawyers had raised the alarm with courts nine months before the procedure, warning that a rare blood disorder tied to cancer could render the lethal injection both painful and dangerously unpredictable. Pike spent ten days in hospital following the botched procedure before being returned to prison.

Attorneys argued the rare cancer diagnosis risked causing her severe suffering during execution, but the courts proceeded anyway.

Pike is the only woman on Tennessee's death row and has been incarcerated since her late teens for the killing of the victim.