Tennessee officials were unable to put Christa Gail Pike to death Wednesday evening after administering two doses of a lethal drug, prompting Gov. Bill Lee to halt the state’s one remaining scheduled execution for the rest of the year and order a third-party review of what happened.
Pike, 50, remained alive and audibly snoring after the attempted lethal injection and was taken by ambulance from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, her attorneys said. She was being treated at an off-site medical facility, though her attorneys said they had not been given details of her condition. Had the execution succeeded, Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, called what happened to Pike singular and unparalleled. She said seven other people have previously survived medical complications tied to an execution team’s failure to access a vein, but no one has previously remained alive after actually receiving the lethal injection drugs themselves.
What We Know So Far
The execution had initially been scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to issue a stay just an hour before it was set to begin, saying a delay was needed to determine whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse had been fully considered during her original sentencing.
Tennessee’s attorney general’s office appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing the last minute delay traumatized the victim’s family and rewarded what it called abusive delay tactics by Pike’s attorneys. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority cleared the way for the execution to proceed later that day without explanation, while its three liberal members dissented, saying Pike’s claims deserved closer examination.
Officials raised the curtain to the execution chamber at 7:27 p.m. for media witnesses, showing Pike strapped to a gurney. In her final statement, she said she intended to leave the world the way she had spent most of her life, in love, and described herself as at peace. She remained awake throughout the process and at one point raised her head to ask officials whether her arm was supposed to feel a certain way; it was not clear what she was referring to.
Witnesses reported hearing snoring, loud exhales, gasps and complaints of discomfort from Pike, with the curtain periodically closed so only sounds could be heard. Clergy were called into the chamber twice, according to Reuters, before an ambulance arrived at the prison and later departed. The second dose of pentobarbital was administered by 8:26 p.m., and the microphone was cut off at 8:53 p.m. as media witnesses were escorted out.
Pike’s attorneys filed emergency motions with the Tennessee Supreme Court, the 6th Circuit and a federal district court late Wednesday, arguing she was being subjected to unnecessary agony in violation of her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
The Tennessee Department of Correction defended its handling of the execution, saying it followed every step of the state’s lawful, established protocol approved by the attorney general’s office. The department said the lethal injection chemical used has consistently been effective and that the protocol does not allow for procedures beyond what was carried out. The state’s execution protocol calls for a second set of drug syringes if the inmate is not deceased after the first, but it does not specify what happens if the person remains alive after the second set as well.
Lee said in a statement that carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the state’s most serious responsibilities and that Tennesseans expect it to be done legally, constitutionally and effectively. Wednesday marked the second time this year Tennessee has failed to carry out a scheduled execution; in May, officials called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers after executioners spent more than an hour unable to place an IV.
The Underlying Case
Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a Knoxville job training facility, in January 1995. One account described a third companion as also having lured Slemmer into a wooded area alongside Pike and Shipp, a detail not mentioned in other reporting on the case; that discrepancy in how many people were directly involved in luring Slemmer had not been resolved as of the latest reporting. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend, cut her with a box cutter and beat her with a chunk of asphalt.
Shipp has acknowledged carving a pentagram, a star shaped symbol associated with Satan, into Slemmer’s body; one account additionally reported that a piece of her skull was taken from the scene. The case drew intense media attention at the time, amplified by fears of Satanic ritual activity during the broader “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.
Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the killing, received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike, 18 at the time, was the only one of the two sentenced to death, and would have been the only person executed in Tennessee’s modern death penalty era for a crime committed as a teenager. She was separately convicted in August 2001 of attempted first degree murder after assaulting another inmate, according to the Department of Correction.
In a 226 page clemency petition filed before the execution, Pike’s lawyers documented her history as a childhood victim of violence, neglect and sexual abuse, including two rapes at ages 11 and 17, along with diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder she received while incarcerated. The petition also cited evidence that Pike’s mother drank heavily during pregnancy, which her lawyers argued contributed to impaired brain development affecting her impulse control as a young person.
Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier, noting that other 18-year-olds in Tennessee have had similar death sentences vacated. In her own statement, Pike said she had been a mentally ill 18-year-old and that it took her years to fully grasp the gravity of what she had done.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, traveled to Nashville hoping to witness the execution after waiting decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out. “Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez told the Associated Press before the execution attempt. She could not be reached for comment after the execution was halted.
Why This Matters
Pike’s case had already reignited debate over the death penalty’s application to crimes committed by teenagers, given that she was 18 at the time of the killing and that comparable Tennessee cases involving 18-year-old defendants have had their death sentences vacated. Wednesday’s failed execution adds a new and unprecedented dimension to that debate, given that no prior execution subject in the modern era has survived after actually receiving lethal injection drugs rather than failing earlier in the process due to vein access problems.
The case also highlights the rarity of executing women in the United States. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, only 18 women have been executed nationwide, representing about 1 percent of all executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Tennessee had executed 17 people before Wednesday’s attempt, according to Reuters, none of them women. Pike would have been the 30th person executed nationwide this year, following an execution in Florida on Tuesday.
Tennessee switched from a three drug lethal injection protocol to the single drug pentobarbital in 2024, more than two years after the state abruptly halted the execution of Oscar Smith and acknowledged it had failed to properly test its lethal injection drugs. Wednesday’s failure, following May’s aborted execution of Carruthers, raises renewed questions about the reliability of the state’s current execution protocol despite that earlier reform.
What Happens Next
Lee has ordered a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred during Wednesday’s execution attempt, and has suspended Tennessee’s one remaining scheduled execution for the rest of the year pending that review’s outcome. It remains unclear what legal avenues Pike’s attorneys or the state may pursue next regarding her case specifically.
Pike’s medical condition following the ordeal had not been disclosed as of the latest reporting. Given the unprecedented nature of what occurred, the outcome of Lee’s ordered review is likely to draw significant attention from death penalty experts, other states using similar execution protocols, and advocates on both sides of the broader capital punishment debate.
Reporting drawn from the Associated Press, Reuters and NBC News
