Tennessee’s governor has halted all executions in the state until at least the end of the year and called for an independent investigation after a failed attempt to execute an inmate on Wednesday night. Witnesses at the execution chamber in Nashville said Christa Pike, convicted of murder, was still awake and snoring loudly about 40 minutes after officials gave her two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital. The Tennessee Department of Correction said she was taken to an off-site medical facility. Her condition was unknown on Thursday. Bill Lee, the state’s Republican governor, announced the suspension and investigation in a statement early Thursday that seemed to criticize prison authorities. “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,” he said. Lee said he had demanded “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.” Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, called the failed execution attempt “singular and unparalleled,” according to the Associated Press. She said her group knew of seven other people who had survived medical problems because an execution team failed to access a vein to administer lethal injection drugs, but no one had remained alive after receiving the drugs used in such executions. In May, Tennessee officials canceled the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, another convicted murderer, after failing for more than an hour to place an intravenous line into his arm. Pike, 50, who was sentenced to death for the brutal 1994 killing of a teenage classmate, was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. The execution attempt was allowed to proceed only after the US Supreme Court intervened late on Wednesday to lift a federal court stay issued earlier that day, a delay it said was necessary to assess whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her 1996 sentencing. Lawyers for Pike filed an emergency motion to the Tennessee Supreme Court after the second pentobarbital dose was administered, asking to halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and that the state was violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment. In a later statement, they said: “Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. 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,” the statement said. “Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed as to her condition.” A representative of the state corrections department defended its handling of the unsuccessful execution attempt. “The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” the spokesperson, Dorinda Carter, said in a statement. “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. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility.” According to the AP, Tennessee’s execution protocol calls for a secondary set of drug syringes to be administered “if the inmate is not deceased” after the first set. It does not spell out what happens if the subject is alive after the second set. Seven journalists who were present at the Riverbend maximum security institution as witnesses described what they saw during a livestream.A television station, WVLT, hosted the event shortly after the curtains in the execution chamber were lowered for the last time. They said Pike was snoring as corrections officers escorted them out. John North, from ABC News affiliate WBIR, said, “It seems this didn’t go as planned. When we left the building, as far as we knew, she was likely still alive.” In January 1995, Pike and her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, then 18 and 17, along with another female friend, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at Knoxville Job Corps, using box cutters and a rock. The case made national headlines because of the young ages of those involved and the savagery of the murder, during which Shipp carved a pentagram into the victim’s chest and Pike later showed a friend a piece of her skull. Pike never denied the killing and was later diagnosed with mental health disorders. “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me many years to even grasp the seriousness of what I’d done,” she said in a clemency petition that Lee and the US Supreme Court rejected. Lee’s suspension order impacts the only other execution planned in Tennessee this year. Gary Wayne Sutton has been on death row since 1996 for murdering a friend and was set to be executed on December 3. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of frequently asked questions regarding Tennessee halting executions following the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike
Beginner Questions
What happened with Christa Pikes execution
In 2025 Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike the only woman on the states death row The execution was halted because the medical team could not successfully establish the intravenous lines needed to administer the lethal injection drugs
Did Christa Pike die
No The execution was called off before any lethal drugs were injected She remains alive and is currently back on death row
Who is Christa Pike
Christa Pike was convicted of the 1995 torture and murder of a fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer She was sentenced to death in 1996
What does it mean that executions are halted
It means the state of Tennessee has temporarily stopped all scheduled executions They will not execute anyone else until they review what went wrong and fix their procedures
Why did the lethal injection fail
The execution team could not find a suitable vein to insert the IV line This is a common problem known as difficult venous access Without a working IV they cannot deliver the lethal drugs
Is this the first time an execution has failed in Tennessee
No In 2022 Tennessee halted the execution of Oscar Smith for the same reasonthey couldnt get the IV line in before the death warrant expired That case led to a review but problems clearly persist
Intermediate Questions
What is a death warrant and how does it relate to this halt
A death warrant is a court order setting a specific date and time for an execution If the execution isnt completed before the warrant expires the state must stop and go back to court for a new warrant In Pikes case they ran out of time
Why cant they just try again the next day
They cant try again immediately because the death warrant expires To set a new execution date the state must go through a legal process which includes notifying the courts and the defense The governor has now paused this process entirely
What did the Governor of Tennessee say about the halt
Governor Bill Lee issued a statement saying he was ordering a temporary halt to all executions to allow for a thorough review of the states lethal injection
