NASHVILLE —Tennessee officials were unable to put Christa Gail Pike to death on Wednesday for a 1995 murder after administering two doses of a lethal drug, and she was taken to hospital as her heart was still beating.Her legal team filed an emergency motion to halt the convicted murderer’s execution as it was happening, saying: “Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring.”One of her attorneys told the BBC that Pike was “being provided life-saving measures” in hospital after two syringes of pentobarbital had been administered.Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.Neither the attorneys nor Tennessee Department of Corrections officials provided an update on Pike’s condition late Wednesday.Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10 a.m. Wednesday for the killing she committed at age 18 and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start and hours later the US Supreme Court overturned that stay.The attempted execution took place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at about 20:00 local time on Wednesday night.Officials gave Pike two doses of pentobarbital, her attorneys said in court filings late Wednesday. Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike experienced is “singular and unparalleled.”Seven other people have survived medical problems due to the 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.Tennessee Department of Correction spokesperson Dorinda Carter told media witnesses she was unable to immediately provide information about what happened.Lawyers for Pike filed an emergency motion late Wednesday to the US Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and it was violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment. They also filed motions in the Sixth Circuit court and district court.The motion also asserted that the Department of Correction should begin lifesaving measures. “Failure to provide such care constitutes deliberate indifference to legitimate, serious medical needs.”Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating in 1995 of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. The case garnered widespread attention in part because of a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.It was the second time this year that Tennessee has been unable to carry out an execution. In May, state officials called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing three people in 1994, after executioners tried and failed for over an hour to place an IV to administer pentobarbital.Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue that the state should consider her age at the time, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse.As the execution date drew near, debate renewed over the death penalty for young offenders.Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds in Tennessee have had such sentences vacated.After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency petition, she said she only wanted to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she couldn’t “put the brakes on.”Slemmer’s mother had said she wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.The killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995.Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satan, into her body.Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been put to death, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Pike would have been the 30th person executed in the US this year after Florida carried out an execution on Tuesday.Tennessee announced in 2024 that it was switching from a three-drug series for lethal injections to the single drug pentobarbital. That came more than two years after the state abruptly halted the execution of Oscar Smith and acknowledged that it had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs were tested properly.NASHVILLE —Tennessee officials were unable to put Christa Gail Pike to death on Wednesday for a 1995 murder after administering two doses of a lethal drug, and she was taken to hospital as her heart was still beating.Her legal team filed an emergency motion to halt the convicted murderer’s execution as it was happening, saying: “Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring.”One of her attorneys told the BBC that Pike was “being provided life-saving measures” in hospital after two syringes of pentobarbital had been administered.Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.Neither the attorneys nor Tennessee Department of Corrections officials provided an update on Pike’s condition late Wednesday.Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10 a.m. Wednesday for the killing she committed at age 18 and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start and hours later the US Supreme Court overturned that stay.The attempted execution took place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at about 20:00 local time on Wednesday night.Officials gave Pike two doses of pentobarbital, her attorneys said in court filings late Wednesday. Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said what Pike experienced is “singular and unparalleled.”Seven other people have survived medical problems due to the 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.Tennessee Department of Correction spokesperson Dorinda Carter told media witnesses she was unable to immediately provide information about what happened.Lawyers for Pike filed an emergency motion late Wednesday to the US Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and it was violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment. They also filed motions in the Sixth Circuit court and district court.The motion also asserted that the Department of Correction should begin lifesaving measures. “Failure to provide such care constitutes deliberate indifference to legitimate, serious medical needs.”Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating in 1995 of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. The case garnered widespread attention in part because of a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.It was the second time this year that Tennessee has been unable to carry out an execution. In May, state officials called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing three people in 1994, after executioners tried and failed for over an hour to place an IV to administer pentobarbital.Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue that the state should consider her age at the time, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse.As the execution date drew near, debate renewed over the death penalty for young offenders.Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds in Tennessee have had such sentences vacated.After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency petition, she said she only wanted to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she couldn’t “put the brakes on.”Slemmer’s mother had said she wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.The killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995.Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satan, into her body.Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been put to death, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Pike would have been the 30th person executed in the US this year after Florida carried out an execution on Tuesday.Tennessee announced in 2024 that it was switching from a three-drug series for lethal injections to the single drug pentobarbital. That came more than two years after the state abruptly halted the execution of Oscar Smith and acknowledged that it had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs were tested properly.
US death row inmate taken to hospital after surviving lethal injections
