Convicted Murderer Christa Pike Diagnosed With Rare Cancer

A court filing has revealed that convicted murderer Christa Pike has a rare form of cancer.

Nine months before the 50-year-old’s botched execution in Tennessee took place, her lawyers made an attempt to warn that her diagnosis could result in “unnecessary and super added pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace.”

The complaint, obtained by PEOPLE, noted her “platelet count is significantly elevated, likely due to a rare form of blood cancer called myeloproliferative disorder’.

“A pulmonary edema is not simply painful or uncomfortable; it can create a sense of suffocating or drowning that has been likened by experts to the sensation intentionally induced by the practice of waterboarding—an unambiguous form of outright torture,” Pike’s lawyer said in the filing.

Her legal team also cited problems with her veins and that new protocol meant immediate phone access during the execution wouldn’t be available.