There are many interviews I remember during my career as a journalist. Some stay with you because of the magnitude of the story, and meeting the youngest woman on death row, Christa Pike, 20 years ago has most definitely stayed with me.

The woman I met in 2006 did not look or behave like the monster the public might imagine when they hear the word “murderer”.

She and her boyfriend at the time were convicted over the 1995 killing of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. I had walked into that prison expecting to meet a killer. Instead, I found myself sitting opposite a vulnerable young woman, desperate to be liked.

I met Christa at the then Tennessee’s maximum-security Prison for Women, now known as Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dressed all in white, she looked anxious but had lots of smiles, eye contact and even a gentle demeanour.

When I came out an hour later I felt emotional – there were no tears, but I couldn’t speak. I needed to sit in silence for a short time and process what had just happened. 

Two decades later, Christa’s execution was set to take place yesterday at 4pm UK time – but was paused temporarily, and eventually took place at 1am this morning.

However, it didn’t go to plan and Christa was taken to hospital after her heart was still beating and she was heard snoring depsite being giving two doses of lethal injections.

Looking back on the day I met Christa, here are five key moments that have stayed with me.

Even on death row, her hair, make-up and nails were immaculate

From the moment we came face to face, through a secure window and a speaker system, I noticed how well she looked. Christa’s long, thick, frizzy curls were immaculate. Her face was full of make-up, with long, carefully filed nails.

I told her she looked pretty, and I could sense she liked the compliment. It was striking how important her appearance was; her hair and make-up seemed to be among the few things she could still claim as her own. She explained the prison had a catalogue where she could order make-up and hair products with money in her prison account.

‘I take care of my hair, it’s the only thing that makes me feel feminine in here,’ she explained.

The smell of the maximum-security prison was pungent

I’ll never forget the stehch when I walked into the prison.

It was the kind of maximum-security facility I had only ever seen in films, and had a strange mix of barbecue turkey cooking and strong bleach.

I gagged a couple of times before I eventually adapted to it.

There were top-of-the-line, thick-glass security doors. I was surprised by how clean the area I saw was, which would explain the overpowering smell of bleach.

After being checked in, I was accompanied just a few feet into another spotless but highly secure room with a window to talk to Christa.

Instead of anger, I felt pity for her

I remember leaving the prison and feeling so much pity for Christa. Not because I have forgotten what she did, or because I want to diminish her crime, but because the terrible things that happened to her when she was a child could have been stopped if just one adult had helped her.

She was badly neglected by her parents and had been abused and raped multiple times.

When we spoke, she was articulate, expressive and, in many ways, quite ordinary. Soon after my visit, she found my work office address and sent me a card thanking me for being so nice to her and treating her like a woman. It was touching.

One minute she was smiling for photos, the next chained up like an animal

We didn’t have much time together, but a lot was shared. Even though we had serious topics to cover, we also talked freely, especially about our curly hair – we both had curly hair – and make-up products.

She also spoke about her routine: waking at 6.45am every morning, having three showers a week and eating her meals in her 8ft by 9ft cell.

And because she had been the only female on death row, she didn’t mix with other inmates. She said she had found contentment in reading, watching TV and writing to pen pals.

When our interview was over, we thanked each other and smiled. I definitely felt emotional for her, and then watched as guards locked chains and cuffs around her wrists and ankles before she was escorted away. It was a sight I haven’t forgotten.

Her boyfriend was 17 and got life imprisonment – Christa had been 18 for just a few months and received the death sentence

There’s something very disturbing about the differences in sentences of these two criminals just because there’s a few months’ difference in age.

It has since been reported that Christa was offered a plea deal of life without parole by the state before her trial in 1996, but her attorney apparently reassured her that a local jury would not sentence a “pretty white girl” to death, leading her to decline the deal and take the case to trial.

She admitted to me that what she did was an absolutely terrible thing but said she couldn’t turn back the clock. ‘I had no intention of killing her, I was out of control, it was like something took over inside of me,’ she said.

I met Christa 20 years ago, before she became a headline again, and it’s that young girl, before she became a criminal, who I’ve been thinking about this week, especially yesterday as her execution process played out in the news.

I was at home watching and listening for updates. I couldn’t imagine how she was coping with it all.

She told me back then she didn’t believe in the death sentence: ‘How is killing me going to teach me a lesson? It’s like beating a child for beating someone else – how does that teach right from wrong?

‘I think my government will do everything in their power to kill me. I just hope someone will see that if I had help when I needed it I might never have done what I did.

‘If I die, I die, I’m not scared but I think someone will save me. I’ve come to deal with fear and I have no more tears left inside of me.’

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