Tennessee Woman Survives Botched Execution Attempt

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee officials were unable to execute Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday after administering two doses of pentobarbital, prompting Gov. Bill Lee to halt the state’s remaining scheduled execution this year and order a third-party review.

Pike, 50, remained alive after the attempted lethal injection and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, according to her attorneys. They said she was loudly snoring after the execution attempt and that they had not been told of her medical condition.

Lee said the review would determine what occurred during the execution attempt.

“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities,” Lee said in a statement, adding that executions must be conducted in a manner that is “legal and constitutional” and effective.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said officials followed the state’s established execution protocol, which was approved by the attorney general’s office. The protocol calls for a second set of syringes if an inmate is not dead after the first set, but does not specify what happens if the inmate remains alive after the second set.

Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, called the incident unprecedented. She said seven other people have survived medical problems during lethal injections after execution teams failed to access a vein, but no one has survived after receiving the drugs used in an execution.

Media witnesses reported that officials opened the curtains to the execution chamber at 7:27 p.m., showing Pike strapped to a gurney. Pike said in her final statement that she was at peace and that she would leave the world “in love.”

She remained awake and at one point raised her head and asked prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel a certain way. Witnesses reported that the second dose of pentobarbital was administered by 8:26 p.m. Pike continued snoring until the microphone was turned off at 8:53 p.m.

Pike’s attorneys filed emergency motions Wednesday night seeking to halt the execution, arguing that she was experiencing unnecessary agony and that the procedure violated her constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The failed execution was the second such incident in Tennessee this year. In May, officials called off the execution of Tony Carruthers after executioners spent more than an hour unsuccessfully trying to establish an intravenous line for the lethal injection.

Pike was scheduled to be executed for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted in the killing. Pike was 18 at the time, while Shipp was 17 and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors said Pike lured Slemmer into a wooded area because she believed Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a piece of asphalt. Shipp acknowledged carving a pentagram into Slemmer’s body.

Pike did not deny committing the killing. Her attorneys argued that her age, mental illness and allegations of severe childhood sexual abuse should have been considered when determining her sentence. Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder after the killing.

The execution had been delayed earlier Wednesday when the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay to consider whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse had been adequately considered during sentencing. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the stay, allowing Tennessee to proceed.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s three liberal members, dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision, saying Pike’s claims warranted further consideration.

Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Women have accounted for about 1% of executions in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Tennessee switched to single-drug pentobarbital executions in 2024, more than two years after the state halted the execution of Oscar Smith after discovering that its lethal injection drugs had not been properly tested.