NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Christa Pike asked Tennessee for an unusual accommodation before her scheduled execution: she wanted the team handling her lethal injection to be made up of women.
By the end of the night, Pike was still alive after receiving two doses of pentobarbital, and Tennessee was confronting its second failed execution attempt in just four months.
Pike, 50, was scheduled to die Sept. 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Had the execution succeeded, Pike would have become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Ahead of the execution, Pike requested that female personnel handle the procedure. Her attorneys tied the request to her documented history of sexual abuse and concerns about being restrained and physically handled by men.
The execution itself quickly ran into trouble.
According to reporting and court filings, staff experienced difficulty with Pike’s IV access before administering the state’s execution drug, pentobarbital. Two doses were administered, but Pike continued breathing and remained alive. Witnesses reported hearing her snoring and breathing long after the drugs had been given.
Eventually, the execution was halted and Pike was transported to an off-site medical facility. The Tennessee Department of Correction later said it had followed every step of the state’s established protocol and that the protocol provided no additional procedure once those steps had been completed.
Pike’s lawyers have questioned whether the drug was properly delivered into her bloodstream, but the precise reason the execution failed remains under investigation.
The incident was Tennessee’s second failed execution attempt of 2026.
On May 21, the state attempted to execute death-row inmate Tony Carruthers, but officials called it off after medical personnel were unable to establish the required backup IV line. Staff also attempted unsuccessfully to place a central line. Gov. Bill Lee ultimately granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve.
Tennessee halted Tony Carruthers’ scheduled execution in May after personnel were unable to establish the required IV access.
That means Tennessee has now attempted two executions this year and failed to complete either one.
Pike was sentenced to death for Slemmer’s murder after prosecutors said Pike and others lured the 19-year-old to an isolated area in Knoxville, where she was beaten and killed. Pike was 18 at the time of the crime.
Following Wednesday’s failed execution, Gov. Lee suspended Tennessee executions for the remainder of 2026 and ordered an independent review of what occurred.
For Tennessee, the questions now extend beyond Pike’s case. In May, officials could not establish the IV access needed to execute Carruthers. Four months later, they successfully administered the execution drug to Pike — twice — and she still survived.
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