Christa Pike execution fails twice in death chamber, Tennessee halts all executions

The Christa Pike execution went wrong twice at a Nashville prison on Wednesday evening. Pike, 50, survived two lethal injection attempts and was taken to hospital. Her lawyers said she was in critical condition on Thursday.

Tennessee governor Bill Lee called it a tragedy on Thursday, suspending all scheduled executions for the rest of the year and ordering a third-party review of the botched procedure.

“There is no one that wanted what happened last night to happen,” Lee, a Republican, told reporters. “It’s a tragedy, and it’s deeply disturbing to me that that has happened in this state. The people deserve better and we’re going to make sure that happens.”

How the Christa Pike execution went wrong

Prison staff injected two syringes of pentobarbital into Pike, her lawyers said in a late-night court filing. The drug caused “unnecessary agony” but did not kill her.

Attorney Randy Spivey said the execution team worked for an hour and that he counted at least seven needles in Pike’s left arm. Pike remained awake, talking and singing during her more than 90 minutes in the death chamber.

“Please try here, please try here,” Spivey recalled her telling the team as they struggled to find a vein. “She told them over and over, please try higher on my shoulder.”

Attorney Steve Ferrell said Pike has a lifelong blood disorder that makes it difficult to insert needles into her veins, and the IV line may never have entered a vein, so the drug filled her arm instead of her bloodstream.

Pike said she was at peace before the drugs were given. “I’m ready to be free. … This is a happy day,” she said.

A landmark case for Tennessee

Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and a third companion lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area near Knoxville. They tortured and killed Slemmer, their classmate at a Job Corps vocational centre.

Both confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder. Pike became the only woman on Tennessee’s death row and would have been the first woman executed there in more than 200 years.

Her lawyers tried unsuccessfully to stop the execution, pointing to her young age at the time of the crime, a history of childhood sexual abuse and untreated mental illness. An appeals court granted a stay an hour before the execution was due to begin on Wednesday morning, but the US Supreme Court overturned it hours later.

May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, travelled to Nashville to witness the execution. “I didn’t get justice for my daughter,” she said on Thursday. She said Pike stayed awake throughout: “She was laughing. She was moving her head, moving her feet. She was trying to sit up. Didn’t work the first time they gave her a shot. It didn’t work the second time.”

Tennessee’s troubled execution record

It was the second failed execution in Tennessee this year. In May, officials halted the execution of Tony Carruthers because they could not set up IV lines.

Tennessee switched to a one-drug protocol using pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate, in 2024.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the US should follow the countries that have abolished the death penalty. “The prolonged suffering – physical and mental – arising from multiple failed execution attempts is abhorrent, and cruel,” he said in a statement on X.

Robin M. Maher, of the Death Penalty Information Center, called it “singular and unparalleled”: no one else has survived long enough after receiving execution drugs to be moved to a hospital.

What happens next

Lee ordered a third-party review. Pike’s execution and another scheduled this year are postponed indefinitely while her lawyers press for commutation.

What crime was Christa Pike convicted of?

Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she, her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and a third companion lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area near Knoxville and killed her. Pike and Shipp confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder.

Has Tennessee botched executions before?

Yes. In May, officials halted the execution of Tony Carruthers because they could not set up intravenous lines. Pike’s case was the second failed execution in Tennessee this year.