Christa Pike is in critical condition after Tennessee’s failed execution attempt, her lawyers say

Spivey called the process cruel and tortuous, saying he was “haunted” by what he saw after the execution team struggled to find a vein for the lethal drugs. He said he counted at least seven needles in her left arm.

During the struggle to locate a vein, Pike even suggested where they might find a spot, he said.

“Please try here, please try here,” Spivey recalled her saying. “She told them over and over, please try higher on my shoulder.”

An execution fails

The state tried to execute Pike by lethal injection, but neither the initial nor backup dose of pentobarbital killed her and she was still snoring when the execution chamber’s microphone was cut off more than an hour into the attempt. She was later taken to a hospital for treatment.

At one point during the execution attempt, she asked prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way, though it’s unclear if it was after the first dose entered her body, as officials don’t share that information. Later, more than an hour after the process began and nearly 30 minutes after a backup dose of pentobarbital was administered, she could be heard snoring loudly.

Another of Pike’s attorneys, Steve Ferrell, said she feared there would be complications with the lethal injection because of a lifelong blood disorder that made it tough to get needles into her veins. “Throughout her life, she’s explained to us that she had trouble having blood drawn,” he said.

It was quite possible, Ferrell said, that the IV line didn’t enter her vein properly and that the drug was filling her arm instead of entering her bloodstream.

Her lawyers called for her death sentence to be commuted, saying what she went through Wednesday amounted to torture.

May Martinez, whose daughter was murdered by Pike and her boyfriend and who traveled to Nashville to watch the execution, told NBC News “it was a mess.”

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for a murder she committed at age 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

An appeals court stopped the lethal injection an hour before it was scheduled to begin, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that stay hours later.

It was the second time this year that Tennessee was unable to complete an execution. In the other case, officials couldn’t find a suitable vein for an IV line so the drugs weren’t administered.

Governor halts another 2026 execution

The governor said it appeared prison staff followed procedure, but he described what transpired as “deeply disturbing.”

“There are very few answers this morning. It’s very early,” Lee told reporters Thursday. “The people of our state deserve to have those questions answered.”

Officials gave Pike two doses of pentobarbital, her attorneys said in court filings late Wednesday. The drug has been used in executions in multiple states and by the federal government, but there have been concerns raised about the potential for “unnecessary pain and suffering.”

The Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement that it “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”

The state changed its execution method two years ago

Tennessee announced in 2024 that it was switching from a three-drug series for lethal injections to a single drug, pentobarbital. That came more than two years after the state abruptly halted the execution of Oscar Smith and acknowledged it had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs had been tested properly.

Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike experienced is “singular and unparalleled” in that she survived long enough to be moved to a hospital.

Seven other people have survived medical problems due to an execution team’s failure to access a vein to administer lethal injection drugs, but no one has stayed alive after receiving the drugs used in such executions, she said.

Executions in the U.S. have fallen sharply since the beginning of this century amid growing public opposition and concerns about the costs and the drugs used. But the number of executions nearly doubled last year behind a record increase in Florida.

Pike would have been the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year.

Pike was awake in the chamber

Strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber, Pike described herself as at peace.

When asked if she had any last words, Pike said several things, including, “I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free. … This is a happy day.”

But she remained awake, and at one point complained about the feeling in her arm. The chamber’s curtains were closed briefly, suggesting it had been five minutes since the first dose was administered. But they were reopened three minutes later.

An hour after officials first raised the curtains, witnesses reported that a second dose of pentobarbital was administered. Pike could still be heard snoring behind a closed curtain until the microphone was cut off almost 30 minutes later.

Her lawyers filed an emergency motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and the procedure violated her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.

Last May, Tennessee officials called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing three people in 1994, after executioners tried for over an hour but failed to find a suitable vein for a secondary IV line.

Pike didn’t deny her role in the killing

Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate. The killing stoked fears of Satan worship because of a pentagram carved on Slemmer’s body.

Pike’s boyfriend wasn’t eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the killing and received a sentence of life in prison. He was denied parole last year.

Pike didn’t dispute that she helped kill Slemmer, but supporters argued that Pike’s age at the time of the murder, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse should be considered. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder after the killing.

“It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,” she once said.

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This story was updated to correct the spelling of Randy Spivey’s last name.

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Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, Ed White in Detroit, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

Kim Chandler And Kristin M. Hall, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

Christa Pike is in critical condition after Tennessee’s failed execution attempt, her lawyers say

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