Christa Pike survives 2 lethal injection doses; Tennessee governor halts executions

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Christa Gail Pike survived two lethal injections on Wednesday as Tennessee prison officials failed to put her to death for a 1995 murder. Gov. Bill Lee intervened, stopping executions for the rest of the year and ordering an investigation, The Tennessean reported.

Prison officials at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution outside of Nashville administered two doses of pentobarbital, an extremely strong sedative that is lethal in high doses, to the 50-year-old Pike.

But witnesses said she was still alive and audibly snoring after the injections and was taken by ambulance from the prison to a nearby hospital, according to the newspaper.

Pike had remained awake, raising her head at one point and asking prison officials about a sensation she was feeling in her arm, The Associated Press reported.

It was the second botched execution in Tennessee this year, according to The New York Times.

Pike, who had been on death row since her 1996 conviction for the murder of Florida resident and fellow student Colleen Slemmer in eastern Tennessee, was set to become the first woman executed in the state since 1819. After several delays via emergency court filings, state officials raced to complete the execution before midnight to avoid having to reschedule it, the AP reported.

Lee said shortly before midnight that he ordered an investigation into what went wrong and postponed Tennessee’s remaining execution -- convicted killer Gary Wayne Sutton, on Dec. 3, USA Today reported.

“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,” Lee said in a statement. “I have ordered a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.”

Pike’s attorneys also released a statement late Wednesday, The Tennessean reported.

“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” they said. “We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.

“Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed as to her condition.”

In a statement, the Tennessee Department of Correction said it “followed every step” of the state’s execution protocol.

“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening,” the TDOC said. “Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility.”

Wednesday’s attempts to execute Pike came after a flurry of emergency legal motions by defense attorneys that had postponed the procedure for approximately nine hours, the newspaper reported.

Pike had been scheduled to die at 10 a.m. CT on Wednesday, but approximately an hour before the execution, a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit granted her a stay “until further order of this court,” The Tennessean reported. The vote was 2-1 in favor of a “short stay,” according to the newspaper.

Several hours later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that ruling, allowing the execution to go forward.

Tennessee’s only female death row inmate seemingly lost her final appeal on Tuesday after the Supreme Court declined to intervene, USA Today reported.

Pike had been convicted and sentenced to death after she and two teen accomplices tortured, slashed and fatally beat Slemmer, a fellow Knoxville Job Corps student from Orange Park, Florida, on Jan. 12, 1995, WBIR reported. Pike was 18 at the time.

Pike was to become the 19th woman executed in the U.S. over the past 50 years; she was the only female on Tennessee’s death row and had been there for three decades, according to USA Today.

Tennessee last executed a woman in 1819. According to data compiled by the U.S. Supreme Court, an unnamed Black female named was hanged for murder.

On a rainy night in eastern Tennessee in January 1995, Pike and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, invited Slemmer to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus on the pretense of smoking marijuana.

According to court filings, Pike believed that Slemmer was attempting to “steal” her boyfriend.

Investigators said that Pike and Shipp attacked Slemmer for at least 30 minutes. Slemmer suffered repeated injuries, including wounds from a meat cleaver and another sharp object, WBIR reported. A pentagram was also carved into her chest, according to an autopsy and testimony presented in the case.

Pike delivered the final blow with a piece of asphalt, prosecutors said.

“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,” Pike said in a statement that was attached to her clemency petition. “Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.”

A third person, Shadolla Peterson, 18, was arrested but was given probation after agreeing to testify against Pike and Shipp, according to The Tennessean.

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. Shipp was convicted of the same charge but avoided the death penalty because he was a minor at the time of the murder, the newspaper reported. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Shipp’s request for parole was denied in October 2025, WBIR reported. He is eligible for another hearing in October 2031, according to the television station.

Shipp remains imprisoned in the Northwest Correctional Complex in Lake County, three hours west of Nashville, The Tennessean reported.

Pike was the youngest woman sentenced to death in the modern era of U.S. executions, the Nashville Banner reported.

Pike’s attorneys cited her youth at the time of the murder and her “horrible childhood” that involved sexual abuse and neglect.

Pike was also convicted of the 2004 attempted murder of a female inmate when the prison where she was housed was evacuated during a fire.

The most recent execution of a woman in the U.S. occurred in January 2023, The Tennessean reported. That is when Amber McLaughlin died by lethal injection in Missouri for the 2003 kidnapping, rape and murder of her former girlfriend, Beverly Guenther. She was convicted and sentenced to death in 2006.

McLaughlin is believed to be the first transgender woman to be executed in the United States.

It was the second time this year that Tennessee has been unable to carry out an execution, according to the AP. In May, state officials postponed the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing three people in 1994. Prison officials tried and failed for more than an hour to place an IV to administer pentobarbital.

In what was supposed to be her final statement, Pike said she was at peace.

“I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life and that is in love,” she said.

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