"I am recovering, and I know that I am getting stronger," she said in her statement on Friday. "But healing is not the same as being okay."

Her lawyers previously said she had suffered from pneumonia following the attempted execution, had significant swelling on her arms and was also unable to swallow.

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for low-income young people.

Shipp was spared the death penalty because he was not legally an adult when the crime was committed. He remains in prison.

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