Tennessee halts Christa Pike execution after two lethal-injection doses

Tennessee officials were unable to complete the execution of death-row inmate Christa Pike after administering two doses of pentobarbital, her lawyers said. Pike, 50, was scheduled to be executed for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Witnesses reported that Pike remained alive and could be heard snoring after the drugs were administered.

Her lawyers said she was taken by ambulance from the prison, although her condition was not immediately known. The execution was delayed earlier in the day when the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay to consider whether evidence of Pike’s childhood sexual abuse had been fully addressed at sentencing. The US Supreme Court later overturned that order, allowing the execution to proceed.

Pike’s legal team filed emergency motions asking courts to halt the process and provide medical treatment. They argued that the procedure had caused unnecessary suffering and raised concerns about access to her veins, the condition of the drug and the absence of emergency care. Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Centre described the event as unprecedented.

She said other prisoners had survived problems during lethal injections, but not after receiving the drugs used in an execution. Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of killing Slemmer at a job-training facility in Knoxville. The case drew attention because a pentagram was carved on the victim’s body.

It was the second failed execution in Tennessee this year after officials abandoned the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers following difficulties placing an intravenous line.