NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept 30 – Tennessee has suspended its remaining executions for the year after prison officials failed to put Christa Gail Pike to death Wednesday, despite administering two doses of pentobarbital to the woman convicted of a 1995 murder.
Pike, 50, remained alive after the attempted lethal injection and was later taken by ambulance from the prison to a hospital, according to her attorneys. They said Pike was still alive and loudly snoring after the execution attempt, but had not been given information about her medical condition.
The failed execution prompted Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to order an independent review of what happened. Lee also directed that the state’s only other scheduled execution for the remainder of 2026 be postponed until next year.
“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities,” Lee said in a statement. He added that Tennesseans expect executions to be conducted in a way that is legal, constitutional and effective.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed the state’s established execution procedures, which had been approved by the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office.
Pike’s execution had been scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. If completed, she would have become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than two centuries.
The execution was delayed earlier in the day when the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay by a 2-1 vote. The court wanted additional time to consider claims concerning Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse and whether those circumstances had received adequate consideration during her sentencing.
The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Several hours later, the Supreme Court allowed the execution to move forward. The court’s conservative majority did not provide an explanation for its decision, while three liberal justices dissented and said Pike’s claims warranted further examination.
By Wednesday evening, however, the issue was no longer whether Pike’s execution could legally proceed. Instead, officials faced an unexpected problem after the lethal injection failed to end her life.
Execution continues after first dose fails
Pike’s attorneys said in court filings that prison officials administered two doses of pentobarbital during the execution. Tennessee’s current execution procedure provides for a second set of syringes if an inmate is still alive after the initial drugs are administered.
The written protocol, however, does not clearly describe what officials should do if the person remains alive following the second dose.
Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, described the situation as an extraordinary event in the history of lethal injection executions.
Maher said there have been other cases in which execution teams encountered medical complications, including difficulties locating a suitable vein. According to her, seven people have survived medical complications during attempted lethal injections because officials could not establish the necessary intravenous access. She said there had not previously been a case in which an inmate remained alive after receiving the drugs intended to cause death.
Witnesses who observed the execution from a separate room said the curtains to the execution chamber were opened at about 7:27 p.m. Pike was visible strapped to a gurney.
During what were intended to be her final words, Pike said she was leaving the world in the same way she had spent much of her life, in love. She also indicated that she was at peace.
Pike remained conscious for part of the process. At one point, she raised her head and asked prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did. Witnesses did not know exactly what sensation she was describing.
The second dose of pentobarbital was reported to have been administered at approximately 8:26 p.m.
Even after that, Pike could still be heard snoring behind the closed curtain. The microphone remained active until approximately 8:53 p.m., when it was shut off and media witnesses were instructed to leave.
Pike’s attorneys subsequently filed an emergency motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court. They argued that continuing the execution would subject their client to unnecessary suffering and violate her constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Additional filings were made in federal court, including before the 6th Circuit and a district court.
The incident marked the second failed attempt by Tennessee to carry out an execution this year. In May, officials abandoned the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers after an execution team spent more than an hour unsuccessfully trying to establish an intravenous line for the administration of pentobarbital. Carruthers was convicted in connection with the kidnapping and deaths of three people in 1994.
Tennessee’s execution procedures have already faced scrutiny in recent years. In 2022, the state halted the execution of Oscar Smith after discovering problems involving its lethal injection preparations. Officials later acknowledged that the drugs had not been properly tested.
The state announced in 2024 that it would move away from its previous three-drug lethal injection method and use pentobarbital as a single-drug protocol.
Pike’s 1995 murder conviction and the debate over young offenders
Pike was sentenced to death for the killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a job training program in Knoxville. The killing took place on Jan. 12, 1995, when Pike was 18.
According to prosecutors, Pike lured Slemmer into a wooded area because she believed Slemmer was attempting to take her boyfriend. Pike attacked Slemmer with a box cutter and then struck her repeatedly with a large piece of asphalt.
Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was also convicted in the case. Shipp was 17 at the time and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. He later acknowledged carving a pentagram into Slemmer’s body.
The unusual and violent details of the killing drew significant public attention. The case also became associated with fears surrounding Satanism during the so-called “satanic panic” that spread across the United States during the 1980s and 1990s.
Pike has never disputed that she killed Slemmer. Her attorneys and supporters, however, have argued that her age, mental health history and allegations of severe childhood sexual abuse should have been given greater weight when her death sentence was imposed.
Following the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In a clemency petition, she described the attack as something that escalated after she initially intended only to confront Slemmer.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid,” Pike said in a statement, adding that it took her years to understand the seriousness of what she had done.
Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell has argued that Pike’s sentence is unusual because other people who were 18 when they committed crimes in Tennessee have had death sentences overturned or vacated.
The case has therefore renewed questions about whether the death penalty should apply to offenders who were only 18 when their crimes were committed. Although 18-year-olds are legally adults, attorneys representing Pike have emphasized the circumstances of her upbringing and her alleged abuse in arguing that her case deserves further consideration.
The U.S. Supreme Court has previously barred the death penalty for crimes committed by people under 18, but Pike was 18 when Slemmer was killed. That distinction has been central to the legal arguments surrounding her case.
Slemmer’s family has continued to seek finality in the decades-old case. Her mother, May Martinez, traveled to Nashville expecting to witness Pike’s execution. Martinez previously told The Associated Press that she had spent decades waiting for the sentence to be carried out.
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez said in a telephone interview before the execution attempt.
Martinez was not immediately available for comment after Tennessee halted the procedure.
The failed execution also comes as executions of women remain uncommon in the United States. The Death Penalty Information Center says 18 women have been executed since the Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, accounting for roughly 1% of executions during that period.
Pike would have been the 30th person executed in the United States this year. Florida carried out an execution on Tuesday, one day before Tennessee’s unsuccessful attempt.
For now, Pike remains alive and Tennessee has halted its remaining scheduled execution for 2026 while officials investigate what went wrong. Gov. Lee’s ordered review is expected to examine the execution process, the drugs used and the actions of the prison team as the state determines how such a failure occurred despite the administration of two doses of pentobarbital.