Christa Pike is speaking in full sentences as she recovers from a failed execution attempt in Tennessee.
One of the 50-year-old’s lawyers told TMZ her speech and ability to walk without help had improved.
However, medical staff are continuing to monitor her cognitive and psychological functioning, according to her legal team.
Her attorney said it could take more than a month to establish any potential long-term effects.
The update comes as her lawyers seek to have her death sentence commuted by Tennessee governor Bill Lee. They argue that surviving the procedure has already subjected her to an exceptional level of punishment.
Christa Pike’s failed execution and hospital treatment
The New York Post reported she had been due to become Tennessee’s first woman executed in 200 years.
Pike received two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital during the 30 September execution attempt, her lawyer said. She was then taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Her lawyers said they were initially told she was brain dead and would soon be taken off life support.
Attorney Randy Spivey later described a very different development: Pike woke up and began speaking. He said she regained consciousness on 6 October, while connected to a ventilator.
Spivey said her first words were: “Where am I and who are you?”
She then asked about the family of her victim, Colleen Slemmer, he said.
Her lawyers said she also suffered pneumonia and a blood clot in her arm. Spivey described significant swelling in her hands, while she was also unable to eat.
She left hospital on 10 October and returned to the prison where she had spent more than 30 years.
Pike was sentenced to death for torturing and murdering Slemmer, her 19-year-old classmate, in 1995.
Tennessee executions paused pending independent review
Following the failed execution, Lee halted executions across Tennessee for the rest of the year.
He also ordered former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to lead an independent review into what happened.
The state’s prison chief, Frank Strada, resigned in the aftermath. He said stepping down during Stanton’s review was in the interests of people in Tennessee.
According to a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos, 33% of Americans support trying to execute an inmate a second time when the first attempt fails.
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