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Tennessee’s governor has halted all executions of a convicted murderer Christina Pike Two lethal injections of pentobarbital survived.
Officials moved Pike, 50, to a live medical facility after she failed Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 30, because protocols did not allow for further attempts to euthanize her, according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
“Carrying out a legally imposed sentence is one of 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 effective,” said Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee he said in a statement on Wednesday, according to The Tennessean.
“Therefore, the rest of the execution will not be done this year,” Lee said.
As a result of the botched attempt to kill Pike, Lee was suspended Gary Wayne Sutton execution, which was set for December 3.
The governor also ordered a “comprehensive, third-party review” of what may have gone wrong in Pike’s execution.
The Tennessee Department of Corrections said in a statement Wednesday night that officers “followed all steps of established, law enforcement protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”
“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has been consistently effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was done tonight,” the statement continued.
Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was executed in 1996 after being convicted of first-degree murder for the 1995 murder. Colleen Slemmerher classmate in the Jobs Corps in Knoxville, according to authorities.
She was 18 at the time of the murder. If the execution is successful, she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Christa Pike has spent nearly three decades on Tennessee’s death row — and on September 30, 2026, she came within an hour of becoming the first woman put to death by the state in more than 200 years before a federal appeals court halted the execution. Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was sent to prison […]
Pike’s attorneys said in a statement Wednesday night that “the State of Tennessee has once again failed to enforce a lawful execution,” according to a statement. The Tennessean.
“We are not happy to be right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, contaminated pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things go wrong, all under a protocol that remains shrouded in secrecy,” the statement continued. “Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed of her condition.”
Journalists who attended Pike’s execution attempt told a press conference that they heard Pike snoring after the pentobarbital injection and that she also complained of pain, according to NBC News.
Slemmer’s mother May Martinez She was also a witness to the execution, which she said “was a mess” while speaking to the news center on the phone.
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Pike’s execution to go ahead after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a stay Wednesday morning to block her execution.
