Ana Navarro tore into the sudden turn that cast convicted killer Christa Pike as a victim after Tennessee’s failed execution left the real victim’s family waiting yet again.
On Friday’s episode of The View, the panel took up the case of Christa Pike, the now-50-year-old woman who survived an execution attempt in Tennessee after receiving two doses of pentobarbital. Mediaite reported that hosts largely agreed the focus belongs with the family of the young woman Pike tortured and killed nearly three decades ago.
Whoopi Goldberg opened by naming that victim, Colleen Slemmer, and said the state should not decide what comes next without hearing from Slemmer’s mother.
"Me personally, I think you should ask the mother what should happen now. I think they should ask her because, you know, they tortured her daughter and there’s a reason she was where she was, but I think it’s, it’s not a question that the state should answer,"
Ana Navarro backed that line hard. She said the coverage shift was driving her crazy and that the woman who tortured and killed an 18-year-old classmate was suddenly being treated as the injured party.
Pike was 18 when she and two other teens, including her 17-year-old boyfriend, killed Colleen Slemmer. They carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest and crushed her skull. Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and became the youngest woman sentenced to death row.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, traveled to Nashville to witness the execution of the woman who murdered her daughter. After more than three decades of waiting, the family watched the state fail to carry out the sentence.
Navarro did not mince words about where the outrage belongs.
"I fully agree with you and I’m glad that every time we have talked about this you have led with mentioning the true victim’s name, Colleen Slemmer, and her mother, May Martinez, because, you know, this is just driving me crazy. It feels like all of a sudden the woman who tortured the 18-year-old and killed the 18-year-old girl has now become the victim."
She kept going. Navarro said she was outraged that Tennessee “couldn’t get this one thing right after 31 years,” and that a family that suffered the worst loss possible now had to watch the convicted killer framed as the victim. She said the victim’s family needs to lead.
Sunny Hostin broke from the panel’s harder line on capital punishment. Citing her Catholic faith, she said she does not support the death penalty and argued life in prison would be enough, pointing out that Pike’s boyfriend, 17 at the time of the murder, is already serving life.
"While what she did is horribly heinous, her boyfriend that was 17 at the time is in prison for the rest of his life and I think life imprisonment would be appropriate right now at this time,"
Hostin’s dissent fit a familiar pattern for a co-host who often stakes out her own ground on crime and punishment, including prior on-air political fights that put her at odds with viewers who want clear accountability.
The lawyer update this week only sharpened the contrast. Randy Spivey, one of Pike’s attorneys, said his client is conscious but remains confused about what happened. He described severe damage to her arms after the failed procedure.
"She cannot move either of her arms, both of her arms and hands are tremendously swollen, and we do not know what, if any, function she will regain in her arms. But we do know that there is a long road ahead,"
A judge ordered that evidence from the execution attempt be preserved. Debate continues over whether Tennessee will try again.
That is the core of the story the panel could not ignore. A family waited more than three decades for a lawful sentence. The state injected two doses of pentobarbital and still left the killer alive. Then the public conversation slid toward Pike’s injuries and her future function in her arms.
The View has a long record of turning legal dramas into studio arguments, as when hosts lit into a defense team’s shifting claims in another high-profile case. This time the friction was simpler: who counts as the victim.
Navarro’s answer was blunt. The true victim is Colleen Slemmer. The mother who buried her and then traveled to Nashville for justice is May Martinez. The convicted killer is Christa Pike. Treating that ranking as optional is what set Navarro off.
Hostin has drawn separate scrutiny before for claims about her own jury service, including a contested account from a cannibalism trial that multiple sources later challenged. On this episode she stayed on message about life imprisonment and her faith-based opposition to capital punishment.
Media fights over crime coverage are not new. Cable and daytime shows alike get graded by audiences who notice when sympathy drifts from the dead to the condemned, much as viewers have staged pushback in other network fights, including calls that followed major personnel drama on rival outlets.
The facts on the table remain plain. Pike was convicted in 1996. The crime was torture and murder. The mother showed up in Nashville. The drugs went in. Pike lived. Her lawyer now talks about swollen arms and a long road. The family is still waiting.
When a state cannot finish a sentence after 31 years, the last people owed another media makeover are the ones who carved a pentagram into an 18-year-old girl.
