Christa Pike remained alive after Tennessee officials administered two doses of the lethal-injection drug pentobarbital, prompting Governor Bill Lee to suspend the state’s remaining execution this year and order an independent review.
The 50-year-old death-row prisoner was taken by ambulance to an off-site medical facility after the failed attempt at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday evening, the Tennessee Department of Correction said. Her lawyers said she was alive and snoring after the procedure, but they had not been told of her medical condition.
Pike had been due to become the first woman executed in Tennessee for more than 200 years. Her execution was initially halted by a federal appeals court roughly an hour before it was scheduled to begin, but the US Supreme Court later overturned that stay.
Two doses of lethal-injection drug administered
Media witnesses reported that the curtains to the execution chamber were opened at about 7.27pm, showing Pike strapped to a gurney. She delivered what were described as her final words, saying she was at peace and that she would leave the world “in love”.
Witnesses said she remained conscious during the process and at one point raised her head to ask prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did. A second dose of pentobarbital was administered by 8.26pm, but Pike could still be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was switched off at 8.53pm.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed the state’s established execution protocol, approved by the attorney general’s office. The department said the protocol did not provide for any additional procedures after those carried out on Wednesday and confirmed that Pike had been taken to hospital.
Governor Lee said he had ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred”. He added that the state’s remaining scheduled execution would not take place during 2026.
“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” Mr Lee said.
Christa Pike’s 1995 murder conviction
Pike was sentenced to death for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a job-training centre in Knoxville, in January 1995. Prosecutors said Pike lured Slemmer into a wooded area because she believed the teenager was trying to take her boyfriend.
Pike was 18 at the time. She was convicted of cutting Slemmer with a box cutter and beating her with a piece of asphalt, while her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, admitted carving a pentagram into the victim’s body.
Shipp, who was 17 when the killing took place, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only person involved to receive a death sentence.
In a clemency petition submitted earlier this week, Pike’s lawyers cited her history of childhood violence, neglect and sexual abuse, as well as diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mr Lee rejected her request for clemency on Monday.
