Tennessee fails to execute Christa Pike after two lethal injections

In 1995, Christa Pike and Tadaryl Shipp killed 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Pike, Shipp, Shadolla Peterson, and Colleen Slemmer were students at a Knoxville Job Corps center.

Christa Pike was 18 when Colleen Slemmer was killed.

Christa Pike believed Colleen Slemmer was trying to take Tadaryl Shipp’s attention.

Christa Pike kept a piece of Colleen Slemmer’s skull.

A pentagram was carved on Colleen Slemmer’s body.

Tadaryl Shipp has said he carved the pentagram on Colleen Slemmer.

Christa Pike has denied carving the pentagram herself.

The killing drew wide attention amid 1990s fears of Satan worship.

Christa Pike and Tadaryl Shipp were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996.

Christa Pike was sentenced to death, and she was the only defendant in the killing to receive that sentence.

Tadaryl Shipp was 17 at the time, so he was not eligible for the death penalty and received life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Shadolla Peterson, then 18, was a lookout and received probation after cooperating.

Christa Pike does not deny killing Colleen Slemmer.

Christa Pike said she meant to fight Colleen Slemmer, not kill her, and could not stop the attack.

Christa Pike said she was a mentally ill 18-year-old.

Christa Pike said it took years to realize the gravity of what she had done.

After the killing, Christa Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pike’s lawyers say she was sexually abused as a child, including rapes at 11 and 17.

Details of Christa Pike’s childhood abuse were not presented to the jury that sentenced her to death.

Pike’s defense said Tennessee had long argued in court that she lied about childhood sexual abuse.

At a recent hearing Tennessee said it did not dispute that Christa Pike had suffered sexual abuse and rape.

Christa Pike is the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.

Christa Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been executed in the United States, about 1 percent of executions.

In May 2026 Tennessee called off Tony Carruthers’s execution after staff could not place an IV for more than an hour.

Gov. Bill Lee denied Christa Pike’s clemency request and said he would not intervene.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Pike’s earlier stay request on Tuesday.

Christa Pike’s execution was scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday.

The Sixth Circuit stayed the execution about an hour before it was set to begin.

The U.S. Supreme Court lifted the stay and allowed the execution to proceed.

The execution attempt was at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Christa Pike said she would leave the world the way she had lived, in love.

Christa Pike said she was at peace and ready to be free.

Witnesses said curtains opened on Pike strapped to a gurney, then closed and opened again as she remained alive.

Christa Pike asked whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did and said a spot felt ready to burst.

Officials gave Christa Pike two doses of pentobarbital.

Tennessee could not put Christa Pike to death on Wednesday after the lethal-injection attempt.

Christa Pike was alive and snoring after the injections.

Media witnesses were escorted out while Pike could still be heard breathing or snoring, around 8:53 p.m.

Tennessee’s protocol calls for a second set of syringes if the inmate is not dead after the first.

The protocol does not say what happens if the person is still alive after the second set.

Pike’s lawyers filed an emergency motion during the attempt asking courts to halt it and order medical care.

Christa Pike was taken by ambulance from the prison to a hospital.

Pike’s lawyers said they had not been told her condition.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said it followed every step of the execution protocol approved by the attorney general’s office.

Gov. Bill Lee halted Tennessee’s remaining execution for 2026.

Gov. Bill Lee ordered a third-party review of what happened.

Gary Wayne Sutton had been scheduled for execution on Dec. 3.

May Martinez, Colleen Slemmer’s mother, said she had waited decades to see the sentence carried out.

May Martinez traveled to Nashville hoping to witness the execution.

May Martinez said she had to reclaim parts of her daughter’s body that had been kept as evidence, including having the grave opened.

Psychologist Bethany Brand, asked by Pike’s lawyers to assess her, wrote that the adults in Pike’s life failed her and that the trauma was extreme.

The Department of Correction did not take questions after the attempt, as it also declined after the Carruthers halt.

May Martinez said Colleen volunteered with the Special Olympics and that the family left town because of the memories.