Execution of U.S. Death Row Inmate Christa Pike Fails After Two Lethal Injections

Bareen Media – The scheduled execution of Christa Gail Pike, a death row inmate in Tennessee, was halted after two doses of a lethal-injection drug failed to end her life.

Pike, 50, was still alive more than an hour after the drugs were administered on Wednesday and was taken by ambulance to a medical facility.

Pike had been scheduled to be executed for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a crime she committed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said its staff followed the state’s approved execution protocol and that Pike was transported to an off-site medical facility.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has ordered a third-party review of the failed execution and suspended executions in the state for the remainder of 2026. The reason the execution failed remains under investigation.