{"id":226159,"date":"2026-10-01T06:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/it-was-a-mess-tennessee-fails-to-execute-inmate-after-2-lethal-injections-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T06:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:02:18","slug":"it-was-a-mess-tennessee-fails-to-execute-inmate-after-2-lethal-injections-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/it-was-a-mess-tennessee-fails-to-execute-inmate-after-2-lethal-injections-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It was a mess\u2019: Tennessee fails to execute inmate after 2 lethal injections – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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 \u201ctransported to an off-site medical facility.\u201d
Pike, 50, is the state\u2019s 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\u2019s lawyers said witnesses saw executioners injecting \u201cboth syringes of lethal injection chemicals\u201d but that Pike remained alive.
They said Pike \u201chas not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat\u201d and that curtains to the death chamber \u201chave gone down twice,\u201d according to the lawyers.
Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, said in a statement that he was ordering \u201ca comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.\u201d 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.
\u201cIt was a mess,\u201d she said.
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.
\u201cIt appeared that this did not go like they thought it was supposed to go,\u201d said John North, investigative producer at WBIR television in Knoxville. \u201cBut we don\u2019t know that. When we left the building, so far as we knew, she was probably still alive.\u201d
Tori Gessner, a reporter and anchor at WKRN of Nashville who has witnessed five executions in the state, said at a news conference that, \u201cNothing about today was normal, typical, at all.\u201d
Gessner said that at 7:34 p.m. Pike was heard saying, \u201cMy arm feels like it\u2019s about to burst open.\u201d Pike then talked about that spot on her arm and asked, \u201cDoes this happen like that?\u201d Gessner said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Correction said the state \u201cfollowed every step of the State\u2019s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General\u2019s Office\u201d and that \u201cthe lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective.\u201d
It\u2019s 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\u2019t find a vein for a backup IV<\/a>.
\u201cTonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,\u201d Pike\u2019s 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\u2019s Wednesday morning order that had temporarily blocked the move.
The high court\u2019s decision hours later capped a flurry of last-minute legal maneuvering in a bid by Pike\u2019s defense team to spare her life. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
\u201cThey went to try to execute her, and she didn\u2019t die,\u201d said Martinez, who wanted the execution carried out and was furious with the state\u2019s governor, the director of the Department of Correction and the attorney general.
Martinez said Pike never expressed remorse during Wednesday\u2019s attempted execution. \u201cNot nothing. That sorry about what happened, you know, to Colleen,\u201d Martinez said.
She criticized the communication about what was going in from officials.
\u201cThey didn\u2019t say anything, and then, all of a sudden, they asked all the victims to leave. And we left,\u201d Martinez said.
\u201cWe didn\u2019t know anything until we got up to the office and saw the commissioner,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cAnd he said that it didn\u2019t work, that it didn\u2019t work, and she\u2019s on her way to the hospital.\u201d
Asked what her message to the governor and attorney general was, Martinez was terse in her response: \u201cThey f—– up.\u201d
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 \u2014 abuse that the state did not dispute at a special hearing in August.
The appeals court in a split decision agreed to a \u201cshort\u201d reprieve halting her execution \u201cin order to properly analyze the parties\u2019 fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits.\u201d
In turn, the state attorney general\u2019s office asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that the execution needed to go on to \u201cavoid rewarding Pike\u2019s abusive delay tactics.\u201d
In their dissent, the three liberal justices wrote that vacating the lower court\u2019s temporary stay of execution \u201cinterferes with the Sixth Circuit\u2019s routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike\u2019s claim.\u201d
\u201cI see no reason to shortcircuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous decision,\u201d Sotomayor wrote.
Lee and the Supreme Court had said this week they would not stop Pike\u2019s 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: \u201cWhether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace.\u201d
\u201cI am not afraid to die,\u201d wrote Pike, who has been on death row for more than three decades. \u201cI\u2019m only nervous about the process.\u201d
Pike was set to be the first woman in more than 200 years that the state has put to death, according to historical records<\/a>.
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<\/a> because someone had carved a pentagram into Slemmer\u2019s chest and Pike bragged to another student that she had kept a fragment of the victim\u2019s skull as a \u201csouvenir.\u201d
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\u2019s 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 \u201csevere mental suffering and superadded psychological terror under Tennessee\u2019s lethal injection protocol.\u201d
The state has not denied that Pike has suffered from abuse. But in a response filed Monday, the attorney general\u2019s office said a judge already concluded last month that it was \u201cspeculative whether Pike would suffer\u201d greater mental harm from how the lethal injection protocol is carried out.
The Supreme Court appeared to be Pike\u2019s remaining chance for a reprieve after Lee said he was upholding her death sentence \u201cafter deliberate consideration.\u201d The high court denied her petition Tuesday evening.
Pike\u2019s lawyers said Monday they were \u201csaddened and heartbroken\u201d that the governor would not be granting clemency.
Another woman, Gaile Owens<\/a>, was on Tennessee\u2019s death row with Pike until 2010, when Gov. Phil Bredesen changed her sentence to life in prison.
In her letter, Pike wrote that people have seen a \u201climited public persona that has been the only narrative\u201d about her. Her lawyers had tried to convince Lee that she was a product of a tumultuous childhood.
\u201cStepping into the chaos of Christa\u2019s life that led her to that moment will not justify her actions that night,\u201d one of her lawyers, Randall Spivey, said of the time when she committed her crime. \u201cBut the chaos will show you that Christa was broken, not evil.\u201d
Pike\u2019s 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\u2019s death, another conspirator was spared: Pike\u2019s 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\u2019s chest.
The third accomplice \u2014 Shadolla Peterson, then 18 \u2014 served as a lookout in the crime and was sentenced to probation in exchange for her cooperation.
Pike told police that she \u201cwasn\u2019t even thinking\u201d when she assaulted Slemmer and that she had been jealous, believing the victim was trying to steal Shipp\u2019s attention. Pike\u2019s lawyers said her age would have been more of a factor today, given how scientific research has evolved in understanding that young people\u2019s brains are still developing<\/a> 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<\/a>: \u201cCan I please hug my mom?\u201d
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.
\u201cIt took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I\u2019d done,\u201d Pike said in her clemency petition.
Three years ago, Pike\u2019s 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\u2019s parents were not stable figures in her life. Her mother\u2019s 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 \u2014 one year before she would take part in Slemmer\u2019s murder \u2014 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\u2019s 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 \u201cis almost impossible to grasp because it is so severe,\u201d Brand wrote.
She told NBC News that medications in prison have helped Pike tremendously and that she now has \u201cempathy and great regret\u201d for what she did. Pike\u2019s case, she added, is a lesson in the need for greater awareness surrounding women\u2019s mental health and recognizing trauma and untreated mental illness.
\u201cIn Christa\u2019s case, nobody was trying to get her help,\u201d Brand said.
May Martinez is unconvinced that the person responsible for mutilating her daughter\u2019s 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\u2019s body parts were not buried with her remains, as some had been retained as trial evidence. She had to pick up Slemmer\u2019s skull from the courthouse, and she remembers that the medical examiner\u2019s 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.)
\u201cWe had her buried in a Catholic cemetery,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cAnd she had to be dug up every time they mailed me body parts.\u201d
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.
\u201cI will sit there with her picture in my hand,\u201d Martinez said of her daughter, \u201cand as she gets hooked up to a needle to go to sleep, she can look at the picture.\u201d
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\u2019s 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\u2019 failed execution earlier this year. Dr. Mark Walton Fowler<\/a> told NBC News that he intended to participate in Pike\u2019s execution. Fowler declined to comment after Pike\u2019s failed execution Wednesday night.
Pike\u2019s 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 \u201cloving-kindness\u201d 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.
\u201cShe did something terrible. Awful. I hate that it happened, and I feel deep compassion for Colleen Slemmer\u2019s family,\u201d Noechel said. \u201cBut Christa is proof that redemption and change are possible.\u201d
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 \u201cmore love in the last two weeks than I have my entire life.\u201d
\u201cI am humbled beyond words,\u201d she wrote, scribbling a heart at the bottom of the note.
Erik Ortiz is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.
Abigail Brooks is a producer for NBC News.
Phil Helsel is a reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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