Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, is conscious and speaking at a Nashville hospital one week after surviving a failed execution attempt with two doses of a lethal drug, according to her lawyers. Her case, described as «unprecedented,» has put the spotlight back on women sentenced to death in the United States.
Pike, 50, was sentenced for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her fellow student at a job training center in Knoxville. Pike was 18 at the time. She was set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
On Wednesday, September 30, after the Supreme Court lifted a stay, the state administered two doses of pentobarbital, but Pike did not die. She was taken to a hospital with swollen, burned, and blistered arms, according to her lawyers. Experts cited by Al Jazeera believe the intravenous line may have been improperly placed.
Governor Bill Lee called what happened «deeply troubling,» ordered an independent review, and suspended another execution scheduled for this year. Pike's lawyers are asking for her sentence to be commuted to life without parole and for all evidence from the procedure to be preserved.
Christa Pike's medical prognosis remains uncertain, according to her lawyers, and she remains handcuffed to her hospital bed under guard. Tennessee's protocol provides for a second dose if a person does not die after the first, but it does not specify what should happen if someone survives the second dose. Her lawyers are going to court this Wednesday to seek more information about the failed procedure.
Sources: NPR/AP; Al Jazeera; WSMV; Death Penalty Information Center. Data consulted on October 7, 2026.
