Tennessee’s effort to put Christa Pike to death by lethal injection Wednesday night ended with her still alive, after she received two rounds of pentobarbital before an ambulance drove her away from Riverbend.
Christa Gail Pike, a 50-year-old, then 18, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer, has not lost consciousness, still has a heartbeat and was audibly snoring, her lawyers wrote to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing reports from media witnesses.
Christa Gail Pike is still alive after two lethal injections.
— Pop Base (@PopBase) October 1, 2026
Her lawyers said she is still breathing and “snoring” in a motion filed to once again halt the execution.
Emergency vehicles were seen at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, and Tennessee filing to the Supreme Court said she was being taken to a hospital.
The curtain was drawn back at 7:27 p.m., giving the reporters their first look at Pike. She was conscious and restrained on the gurney. At about 7:34 p.m. she said, “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” according to media witnesses.
Christa Pike is still alive after two lethal-injection attempts. Her lawyer has moved to halt the execution as an ambulance was seen outside the prison. pic.twitter.com/nqWnjf5Ibq
— Truthseeker (@Xx17965797N) October 1, 2026
About an hour on, witnesses said, the team had finished a second round of the drug by 8:26 p.m. Her snoring was still audible through the closed curtain when the sound feed was switched off at 8:53 p.m. Officials then ushered the reporters out. Media witnesses said Pike was still alive when they were asked to leave. A department spokesperson, Dorinda Carter, told the witnesses she had no immediate account of what went wrong.
Late Wednesday, Pike’s attorneys sought emergency relief from three courts: the district court, the Sixth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. They called the proceeding “unnecessary agony” that breached the ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and urged officials to start medical care to keep her alive.
“We have not been informed as to her condition,” her attorneys said.
Her attorneys added: “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.”
Gov. Bill Lee, in a statement issued after the attempt late Wednesday night, ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” and said the state’s remaining scheduled execution in 2026 would not take place.
The state’s execution warrant expired at midnight local time, according to the Associated Press.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has said she supported the execution and that Pike “should pay for it.”
Ashlee Sellars, a friend Pike met in prison, told the BBC Pike did not want loved ones present to watch.
“Christa in this moment, I think she is fighting much more for her life to matter than she is to actually live,” Sellars said.
The execution followed a last-minute legal fight that began Tuesday. Pike filed a motion under Rule 60(b)(6) in federal district court to reopen the judgment denying federal habeas relief. The district court then transferred the motion to the Sixth Circuit as a second or successive habeas petition.
The Sixth Circuit briefly halted the execution Wednesday morning, but the U.S. Supreme Court later cleared the way for Tennessee to proceed. The stay was issued at 8:17 a.m. Central time Wednesday, according to Tennessee’s application to the U.S. Supreme Court, with Judges Jane B. Stranch and Karen Nelson Moore saying the court needed to “adequately address and resolve” the issues Pike raised. The Supreme Court vacated the stay after Justice Kavanaugh referred the state’s request to the full court. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson dissented.
At the center of Pike’s request was a statement Tennessee made at an August 13, 2026 hearing: “The State does not dispute the terrible things that Ms. Pike suffered.” Pike argued that concession, which came during discussion of PTSD, conflicted with the state’s earlier position that she had fabricated accounts of child sexual abuse and rape. She said the shift warranted reopening the case. She had also raised PTSD in a June challenge to the lethal-injection protocol.
Tennessee argued the filing was a “second and successive habeas petition in disguise” and an attempt to relitigate an ineffective-assistance claim courts had already rejected. The state called the effort gamesmanship and noted 47 days had passed since the August hearing. The state also argued that Pike had never asked for a stay.
Judge Richard Allen Griffin dissented from the Sixth Circuit stay, calling it “another last-ditch meritless effort to delay a lawful execution.”
Justice Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court’s order vacating the stay. “Stunningly, the Court acquiesces,” she wrote, saying the majority had prevented the Sixth Circuit from properly considering Pike’s pending challenge before Tennessee proceeded.
Robin M. Maher, who leads the Death Penalty Information Center, called what happened to Pike “singular and unparalleled.” By Maher’s count, seven earlier inmates lived through attempts that stalled when executioners couldn’t find a usable vein, yet none had been given the execution drugs and survived.
It was Tennessee’s second botched attempt of the year. In May, the state abandoned the execution of Tony Carruthers, condemned for the 1994 abduction and murder of three people, when the team could not secure intravenous access despite more than an hour of effort.
Pike would have been the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than two centuries. Eighteen women have been executed in the United States since 1976.
Pike was convicted in 1996 for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps Center. Pike was 18 at the time. Her boyfriend, then 17, was convicted with her and received life in prison with the possibility of parole. According to trial-era accounts, Pike told fellow student Kim Iloilo she planned to kill Slemmer because she “just felt mean that day.”
Her sentence was this intensive after the jury found the murder involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death and that it was committed to avoid arrest or prosecution. Part of what made the case notorious was the pentagram cut into Slemmer’s chest.
Pike’s defense has argued trial counsel failed to present mitigating evidence to the sentencing jury, including severe childhood abuse and sexual victimization, PTSD, bipolar disorder and organic brain damage. Tennessee courts rejected that claim. Sandra Babcock, who has worked on Pike’s defense, told the BBC that trial counsel knew of the abuse and rape but did not present it.
The Tennessee Supreme Court order dated Sept. 30, 2025 set the execution for Sept. 30, 2026, after finding Pike had completed the standard appeals process. Amici asked the court to issue a certificate of commutation to the governor. The court rejected her protocol claims on Sept. 23 and did not halt the execution.
Gov. Bill Lee denied clemency Monday. The U.S. Supreme Court denied her application for a stay and her certiorari petition Tuesday.
The Tennessee Department of Correction had begun formal preparations for a 10 a.m. execution, inviting recognized Tennessee news organizations to apply for the seven required witness seats and two alternate slots, with selection by drawing.
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