'It was a mess': Tennessee fails to execute inmate after 2 lethal injections
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sept. 28, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT / Updated Oct. 1, 2026, 1:35 AM EDTBy Erik Ortiz, Abigail Brooks and Phil Helsel
Tennessee failed to execute the lone woman on its death row as planned Wednesday, even after injecting her with a lethal drug, a stunning development after the Supreme Court had stepped in to allow the state to put her to death.
Attorneys for Christa Pike said Wednesday night that she was being treated at a hospital, but they did not know her condition. A spokesperson for the Department of Correction did not answer an emailed question whether she was alive but said she was "transported to an off-site medical facility."
Pike, 50, is the state's only woman on death row. She was convicted of murdering a classmate in 1995, when she was 18 years old, and sentenced to death.
In a news conference Wednesday night, journalists who witnessed the attempted execution described snoring and complaints from Pike about pain, as well as her kicking her feet so often that she knocked off the sheets laid on her. At times, the curtain was closed and journalists could only hear sounds.
In a federal court filing seeking to halt her execution, Pike's lawyers said witnesses saw executioners injecting "both syringes of lethal injection chemicals" but that Pike remained alive.
They said Pike "has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat" and that curtains to the death chamber "have gone down twice," according to the lawyers.
Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, said in a statement that he was ordering "a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred." He added that the last remaining execution for this year will not be carried out as planned.
In a phone interview with NBC News early Thursday morning, May Martinez, the mother of victim Colleen Slemmer, described the execution attempt.
"It was a mess," she said.
'Nothing about today was normal'
An ambulance was seen arriving at the prison where Pike was to be executed and then leaving. Medical aid was being administered, according to online federal court records.
"It appeared that this did not go like they thought it was supposed to go," said John North, investigative producer at WBIR television in Knoxville. "But we don't know that. When we left the building, so far as we knew, she was probably still alive."
Tori Gessner, a reporter and anchor at WKRN of Nashville who has witnessed five executions in the state, said at a news conference that, "Nothing about today was normal, typical, at all."
Gessner said that at 7:34 p.m. Pike was heard saying, "My arm feels like it's about to burst open." Pike then talked about that spot on her arm and asked, "Does this happen like that?" Gessner said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Correction said the state "followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office" and that "the lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective."
It's the second time an execution did not go as planned in Tennessee this year. Tony Carruthers, convicted in three 1994 killings, was granted a one-year reprieve after executioners in May couldn't find a vein for a backup IV.
"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," Pike's attorneys said in a statement.
The execution warrant for Pike was set to expire at midnight local time (1 a.m. ET Thursday). The Department of Correction did not immediately say if they would attempt another execution, or when.
The process to execute Pike began at about 8 p.m., her lawyers said, after the Supreme Court vacated a lower court's Wednesday morning order that had temporarily blocked the move.
The high court's decision hours later capped a flurry of last-minute legal maneuvering in a bid by Pike's defense team to spare her life. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Victim's mother furious
"They went to try to execute her, and she didn't die," said Martinez, who wanted the execution carried out and was furious with the state's governor, the director of the Department of Correction and the attorney general.
Martinez said Pike never expressed remorse during Wednesday's attempted execution. "Not nothing. That sorry about what happened, you know, to Colleen," Martinez said.
She criticized the communication about what was going in from officials.
"They didn't say anything, and then, all of a sudden, they asked all the victims to leave. And we left," Martinez said.
"We didn't know anything until we got up to the office and saw the commissioner," Martinez said. "And he said that it didn't work, that it didn't work, and she's on her way to the hospital."
Asked what her message to the governor and attorney general was, Martinez was terse in her response: "They f----- up."
Appeals court stayed execution, based on child abuse claims
About an hour before her scheduled execution at 10 a.m. local time in Nashville, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it needed to review claims made by her lawyers. At issue was whether Pike could reopen a court proceeding centered around her allegations that she was sexually abused beginning when she was a child — abuse that the state did not dispute at a special hearing in August.
The appeals court in a split decision agreed to a "short" reprieve halting her execution "in order to properly analyze the parties' fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits."
In turn, the state attorney general's office asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that the execution needed to go on to "avoid rewarding Pike's abusive delay tactics."
In their dissent, the three liberal justices wrote that vacating the lower court's temporary stay of execution "interferes with the Sixth Circuit's routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike's claim."
"I see no reason to shortcircuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous decision," Sotomayor wrote.
Lee and the Supreme Court had said this week they would not stop Pike's execution.
Before she learned Monday that Lee would not intervene in her case, Pike wrote in a letter to NBC News, shared by her spiritual adviser: "Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace."
"I am not afraid to die," wrote Pike, who has been on death row for more than three decades. "I'm only nervous about the process."
Christa Pike in 2023. Tennessee Dept. of Correction via AP
Pike was set to be the first woman in more than 200 years that the state has put to death, according to historical records.
In 1995, Knoxville police said, she and two teenage accomplices worked together to torture, slash and fatally beat Slemmer, 19. Police said Pike and the others lured Slemmer, a classmate in their Job Corps training program, to an abandoned steam plant at the nearby University of Tennessee and attacked her.
The case became sensationalized when investigators said it was tied to the occult because someone had carved a pentagram into Slemmer's chest and Pike bragged to another student that she had kept a fragment of the victim's skull as a "souvenir."
Pike does not dispute her role in the grisly killing. But details about her upbringing, marked by years of sexual and physical abuse and neglect, were not shared with the jury that sentenced her to death. Her lawyers believe that if such evidence of abuse were presented at a trial now, a death sentence would not be guaranteed.
They had asked the Supreme Court to halt Pike's execution, saying she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from being molested and raped beginning when she was a toddler. Being held down and strapped to a gurney, they wrote, was likely to create "severe mental suffering and superadded psychological terror under Tennessee's lethal injection protocol."
The state has not denied that Pike has suffered from abuse. But in a response filed Monday, the attorney general's office said a judge already concluded last month that it was "speculative whether Pike would suffer" greater mental harm from how the lethal injection protocol is carried out.
The Supreme Court appeared to be Pike's remaining chance for a reprieve after Lee said he was upholding her death sentence "after deliberate consideration." The high court denied her petition Tuesday evening.
Pike's lawyers said Monday they were "saddened and heartbroken" that the governor would not be granting clemency.
Another woman, Gaile Owens, was on Tennessee's death row with Pike until 2010, when Gov. Phil Bredesen changed her sentence to life in prison.
A letter Pike wrote before she learned Gov. Bill Lee denied clemency.via Rev. Mikey Noechel
In her letter, Pike wrote that people have seen a "limited public persona that has been the only narrative" about her. Her lawyers had tried to convince Lee that she was a product of a tumultuous childhood.
"Stepping into the chaos of Christa's life that led her to that moment will not justify her actions that night," one of her lawyers, Randall Spivey, said of the time when she committed her crime. "But the chaos will show you that Christa was broken, not evil."
Different sentences
Pike's lawyers also pointed to her age and how it led to such a different outcome in her case.
While she faced a death sentence because of her first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder conviction in Slemmer's death, another conspirator was spared: Pike's boyfriend, who was 17 at the time.
Tadaryl Shipp was sentenced to life in prison because he was a juvenile and remains eligible for parole. Shipp testified at his post-conviction hearing that he was the one who carved a pentagram into Slemmer's chest.
The third accomplice — Shadolla Peterson, then 18 — served as a lookout in the crime and was sentenced to probation in exchange for her cooperation.
Pike told police that she "wasn't even thinking" when she assaulted Slemmer and that she had been jealous, believing the victim was trying to steal Shipp's attention. Pike's lawyers said her age would have been more of a factor today, given how scientific research has evolved in understanding that young people's brains are still developing well beyond their teen years.
In addition, her lawyers said her legal representatives at the time could have accepted a deal from prosecutors who were offering a life sentence without parole in return for a guilty plea.
Pike sobbed as the judge told her she would die by electrocution, then the only form of execution in Tennessee before the state moved to lethal injection as its primary method.
She pleaded through tears: "Can I please hug my mom?"
Pike entered prison, where she was placed into solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day and prescribed Prozac to treat her obsessive-compulsive disorder. Early on, she struggled to express remorse.
"It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I'd done," Pike said in her clemency petition.
Lingering trauma
Three years ago, Pike's lawyers asked Bethany Brand, a psychologist specializing in trauma, to assess whether she suffers from psychological disorders and consider whether any contributed to the crime.
She sat with Pike at her Nashville prison and reviewed police reports, past medical examinations and other files in her case detailing physical and sexual abuse.
Brand learned that Pike's parents were not stable figures in her life. Her mother's boyfriends and other men had molested her from a young age, the files said. She did poorly in school, living with other family members in West Virginia and North Carolina. At 17 — one year before she would take part in Slemmer's murder — Pike reported to North Carolina police that she was walking to the store when a man threw her to the ground and raped her. No one was ever arrested.
In her final report, Brand wrote that the adults in Pike's life failed her. Doctors only diagnosed a bipolar disorder a few years after she was already in prison.
The level of trauma Pike was subjected to "is almost impossible to grasp because it is so severe," Brand wrote.
She told NBC News that medications in prison have helped Pike tremendously and that she now has "empathy and great regret" for what she did. Pike's case, she added, is a lesson in the need for greater awareness surrounding women's mental health and recognizing trauma and untreated mental illness.
"In Christa's case, nobody was trying to get her help," Brand said.
May Martinez is unconvinced that the person responsible for mutilating her daughter's body and leaving her nude from the waist up could change.
Martinez recalled that, after the investigation ended, she did not realize all of her daughter's body parts were not buried with her remains, as some had been retained as trial evidence. She had to pick up Slemmer's skull from the courthouse, and she remembers that the medical examiner's office mailed her other parts later. (The office said it rarely retains human remains as it did 30 years ago because of better technology, enhanced photography and lab work.)
"We had her buried in a Catholic cemetery," Martinez said. "And she had to be dug up every time they mailed me body parts."
Recently, she said, she has refused to communicate with Pike directly. The only way she can get justice now is when she watches Pike be executed.
"I will sit there with her picture in my hand," Martinez said of her daughter, "and as she gets hooked up to a needle to go to sleep, she can look at the picture."
All-female execution team
Given the rarity of the execution of a female prisoner, Tennessee corrections officials said they would make an effort to fulfill certain requests made by Pike. They included using female guards when she was moved from her all-women's prison in Nashville to the nearby Riverbend Maximum Security Institution within 24 hours of her planned execution. An all-female execution team may also be assigned.
At least one exception was expected to be a male physician who was involved in Carruthers' failed execution earlier this year. Dr. Mark Walton Fowler told NBC News that he intended to participate in Pike's execution. Fowler declined to comment after Pike's failed execution Wednesday night.
Pike's spiritual adviser, the Rev. Mikey Noechel, a Buddhist teacher, said he would also be permitted in the execution chamber. He planned to bless the space, chant and meditate, focusing on a Buddhist prayer of "loving-kindness" with Pike.
Noechel, who has not previously been a spiritual adviser to someone on death row, said they have spent time speaking openly about life, death and gratitude. Pike, he added, does not shy away from what she did.
"She did something terrible. Awful. I hate that it happened, and I feel deep compassion for Colleen Slemmer's family," Noechel said. "But Christa is proof that redemption and change are possible."
He believes all Pike wanted was to be loved and for someone, especially those she trusted, to notice her.
In the letter shared by Noechel, Pike wrote that she is thankful for the support and has felt "more love in the last two weeks than I have my entire life."
"I am humbled beyond words," she wrote, scribbling a heart at the bottom of the note.
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Will anyone be charged with cruel and unusual punishment?
She was. And she was found guilty.
While preferrable the idea that the death has to be completely painless is not something I buy into.
Perhaps those who still support the death penalty would prefer some method that includes torture. At least Robespierre used a method that was instantaneous.
Adopted by WWII Germany who added the 'fine touch' of lying the victim on his or her back so as they could watch the blade fall.
I knew the Nazis used guillotines but I did not know about lying the victim on their back. Whoa.....
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Every ethnicity has their share of monsters.
seems like they could've found 1 or 2 goobers that have experience OD-ing in that region to supervise ...
This is something we can learn from the Canadians. The government kills 20% of the people who die each year and they seem to pull it off without many hiccups.
The actual rate hovers around 5.1% ... is Eric Schmitt your mentor?
I should have looked it up, reversed in 1 in 20 and 20%. Regardless, the point still stands. Canada kills thousands of its own citizens each year without these problems. You should be proud of perfecting how to kill your own citizens. Tennessee just doesn't get enough practice, I guess.
You're discussing medical assisted suicide? Sean's discussing the poor condition of Canada's healthcare....which I have doubts about...meaning I don't think Canada's health care system is terrible
But I like your response
Sean brought up MAID, had he brought up the state of healthcare in Canada the simple response would be to ask which medical healthcare system is beyond reproach ... they all have their detractors.
Well, I was assuming what he was discussing because I can't read his comments
As i said, they kill thousands. They obviously have a lot of practice killing citizens. They should share their secrets with those governments that don't kill thousands of their own citizens each year so they can be efficient as killing people as Canada..
You can add one more, after having gone through multiple dancing lessons with Death I placed myself on a do not resuscitate list. There are times when those extra seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months are just not worth it ... and then I am not a big fan of raging Dylan Thomas's.
“..:killing citizens.”
Comparing the compassion of providing ‘death with dignity’ to state sponsored capital punishment is a stretch, even for our resident contrarian.
We are woefully inadequate in providing care for our aging population but are oh so eager to provide an adequate, but time consuming and expensive way to end the lives of a minuscule percentage of our society. Misplaced priorities, but a salve for a sordid sort of justice.
Life without parole as judged by a jury of peers is appropriate. The promise of a lingering death through the deterioration of a healthy life without recourse is cruel and inhumane. We can do better on both counts.
meh, I'm good with the death penalty for killers, molesters, and traitors. especially molesters and traitors ...
It's voluntary, Jesus, Sean.
He's doing his best to spin a false talking point he tried to make.
and not doing a very good job
Obviously.
So what?
Please read what I wrote again. "Voluntary" has nothing to do with it.
My point is absolutely correct and no one has come close to rebutting what I actually wrote.
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You seemed to be implying they murdered those people....simply not true.
That's completely your imagination. I said they kill thousands of their own people, which they do.
/eyeroll/
Since when is Tennessee in Canada?
Just try responding to what I actually write and not making things up. It will save you having to roll your eyes when your argument against your own imaginary claims get exposed.
Do you think it is? OR are you responding to imaginary claims?
No, I am responding to the article... You know, THAT Tennessee? Not sure what Canada has to do with it.
[✘] If you make an outlandish FALSE claim that someone is killing "20%" and then it turns out that it's 5% [✘] and even the 5% is taken out of context, THE POINT DOES NOT FUCKING STILL STAND!!!
And then all those who think 1 in 20 is the same as 20% get mad at the "highly educated elitists" that point out the glaring flaw in their basic math that [✘] and then they're the bad guys for not listening to the supposed 'blue collar' workers of America more. Fuck that.[✘]
maga moron power!
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meone is killing "20%" and then it turns out that it's 5% because you're bad at math and even the 5% is taken out of context, THE POINT DOES NOT FUCKING STILL STAND!!!
A perfect example. [✘] The point, [✘] is [✘] that Canada successfully kills thousands of its own citizens every year. Tennessee kills about 1. Correcting the percentage does not resolve the massive underlying disparity I was pointing out. Canada excels at killing its own citizens. Tennessee obviously doesn't. Canada should teach Tennessee how it kills so successfully so Tenn doesn't make that mistake again.
[✘] If you actually want to disprove my point logically, you would have to provide Canada does not efficiently kill thousands of it's own citizens each year.Go ahead.
mad at the "highly educated elitists" that point out the glaring flaw in their basic math
It wasn't math, it was bad recall on my part. I didn't get mad, I agreed Hallux was correct. Pay attention.
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If Tennessee wants Canadian knowhow, they just have to ask or are they buried by selfinflicted 'exceptionalism'?
Would you like to name the only president to ever salute a communist leader?
Not sure what Canada has to do with it.
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And if there is anyone that believes medically assisted death doesn't occur in the US every day or in every war,
they are naive or lying to themselves over semantics.
I've witnessed it in a hospital ...
It's how my mom died... She requested it.
... my aunt, cancer. said our goodbyes, the nurse came in, took the block off the morphine IV, a series of clicks later, gone.
And we are in our 70's so we both have many hospital stories to tell and probably too many more coming.
It is a quiet truth.
Morning...I for one certainly don't want to be attached to machines if it going to keep you alive long term..
All our family have agreed we would flip the switch..
But we have had assisted dieing for years here now and many terminally ill people have used the process..
It's everyone's right to live or depart as they see fit...and I am all for it...
I think her sentence should be commuted to life without parole. She survived 2 attempts.
She will likely have significant brain damage and need lifelong care on the state's dime. They could have just kept her in prison where she was contributing... helping other inmates who suffered from sexual trauma.
Should have been that from the beginning, you already know my stance on the death penalty. She was on death row for over 30 years, does anybody know how much government money was spent on all her appeals and court contests? And now additional tax dollars will be spent on her care. Also have to wonder (no, not really) how many lawyers are reading the news this morning and wanting to jump up to help her sue the state for this botched attempt.
It does seem like a waste of taxpayer money. If she sues, what could she sue for? Money? Would that do her any good in prison?
tennessee magas will soon fix their PR problem and she'll be dead before the end of the week ...
Morning... afraid I just don't understand why you mob appear somewhat squeamish about using a firing squad..
None of these dramas and stuff ups..they should have simply kept going with the injections until she departed and couldn't believe they rushed her to the hospital..
I hadn't heard of her before and a documentary was on YouTube..she should not be walking this earth and the boyfriend should have gone as well..
Some people are just simply evil... walking around with part of her victims skull in her pocket showing people was the final straw for me..
The poor mother of Colleen, justice has been delayed once again..
we're all about humanely killing inhumane killers here, right after we blow a million dollars warehousing and defending them with court appointed lawyers during their taxpayer funded appeals process ...
Unfortunately we did away with the death penalty here much to our detriment..
The Bondi shooter would have been an ideal candidate..at least the maggots father was shot dead..
Hell I would be happy to pull the lever myself and watch him swing..
bloody hell mate, get with the times. we put killers in uniform and criminals in elected office ...
Huh...and you think we live upside down..🤣
not my fault the progressive free thinkers that assigned the top and bottom of the universe lived on this side of the equator ...
And as we all know the rot starts from the top..🐨
That's because the top is apparently starting with the bottom...
... so the top is no longer in question?
Evening...crikey would never thought the day would come when I actually agreed with Trumpet on something..
Well stuff me dead!!!..
Trumpet has authorised the use of a firing squad for the Fort Hood shooter...
Don't think there will be any trouble finding volunteers for the firing squad...
People die of drug overdose DAILY in this country, the fact than Tennessee fucked this up is just plain stupid.
makes you wonder what LE really does with all the fentanyl they allegedly confiscate. a couple pills washed down with a soft drink, and poof, dead 30 minutes later ...
Is there a protocol on this? Inmate survives two attempts at execution, so do they keep trying until they get it right or give up? Don't think this has ever happened before.
I have a feeling this will be in the courts for the next few years.