Christa Pike was set to become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years on Wednesday, but she survived the execution attempt, which was delayed by nine hours, even after officials administered two doses of pentobarbital.
Pike was alive as of Thursday morning and was transported to an off-site medical facility, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) has since ordered a third-party review of what happened and said Tennessee’s remaining scheduled execution will not take place this year.
Here is what to know about Pike’s case.
What happened during the execution attempt?
Pike’s execution was scheduled for 10 a.m. local time Wednesday, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a stay about an hour before the scheduled execution.
The court said it needed additional time to consider a new legal challenge from Pike concerning whether her history of childhood sexual abuse and rape had been adequately considered during her trial.
Tennessee appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the stay should be lifted and the execution allowed to proceed. The high court granted the state’s request Wednesday afternoon, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. Sotomayor wrote that the Sixth Circuit should have been allowed to consider Pike’s pending claims before the state carried out an irreversible punishment.
The execution was then rescheduled for Wednesday evening.
Pike delivered what were expected to be her final words, saying she was at peace and that she would “leave this world” in love. Pike was then given two syringes of pentobarbital, a drug that suppresses the central nervous system.
Witnesses reported that she remained responsive after the first dose and at one point raised her head and asked prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did. A second dose was administered at about 8:26 p.m. Pike could reportedly be heard snoring behind the execution-room curtain, but media members were soon escorted from the hospital.
Pike’s attorneys subsequently filed emergency motions seeking to halt the execution, arguing that she was alive and was experiencing unnecessary suffering.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed every step of the state’s “lawful, established execution protocol” and said the lethal-injection chemical “has consistently been effective.” The department later said Pike had been transported to an off-site medical facility.
What was Pike convicted of?
Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 when she killed Slemmer, a fellow student at a Job Corps training center. According to evidence presented at trial, Pike and her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, attacked Slemmer after luring her to an isolated area. Pike beat and tortured Slemmer, cutting her with a box cutter and meat cleaver and striking her head with a piece of asphalt. A satanic symbol was carved into Slemmer’s chest, and Pike took a piece of her skull as a souvenir, according to court records.
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<p> ” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know.webp?w=696″ src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know.webp” alt=”Tennessee Execution” class=”wp-image-4749838″ srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know.webp 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know.webp?resize=300,200 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know.webp?resize=768,512 768w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know.webp?resize=150,100 150w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know.webp?resize=696,464 696w” sizes=”auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”><figcaption class=)
Photographs of Colleen Slemmer, who was murdered in 1995, are displayed outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the planned execution of Christa Pike, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy and sentenced to death in 1996. Shipp was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killing.
Pike has not denied killing Slemmer. Her attorneys have instead argued that her age at the time of the crime, mental illness, and extensive history of childhood sexual abuse should have been given greater consideration when determining her sentence.
How did Pike’s appeals unfold?
Pike’s case has gone through decades of state and federal appeals. The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld her conviction and death sentence in 1998. She later pursued state postconviction relief, arguing in part that her trial attorneys had failed to investigate and present mitigating evidence concerning her childhood abuse adequately.
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<p> ” data-large-file=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know-1.webp?w=696″ src=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know-1.webp” alt=”Tennessee Execution” class=”wp-image-4749836″ style=”width:661px;height:auto” srcset=”https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know-1.webp 1024w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know-1.webp?resize=300,200 300w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know-1.webp?resize=768,512 768w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know-1.webp?resize=150,100 150w, https://conservativemodern.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/christa-pike-was-set-to-be-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-tennessee-in-200-years-before-botched-attempts-what-to-know-1.webp?resize=696,464 696w” sizes=”auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”><figcaption class=)
This photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike on Jan. 12, 2023. (TDOC via AP)Tennessee courts rejected those claims. In 2011, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the denial of post-conviction relief.
Pike then pursued federal habeas relief to bring her case before a federal court. The Sixth Circuit rejected her claims in 2019, finding that she had not demonstrated that her attorneys’ alleged failures prejudiced her at sentencing.
The Supreme Court declined to hear that challenge in June 2020, completing what Tennessee described in its Supreme Court filings as the three levels of review of her conviction and sentence: direct appeal, state post-conviction review, and federal habeas review.
Pike continued to pursue other legal challenges. In 2024, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals considered another post-conviction proceeding. In January 2026, she also challenged Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, arguing that Tennessee’s 12-hour isolation before execution violated her First Amendment rights.
“First, given Christa’s unique medical conditions, we have serious reservations about the State of Tennessee’s ability to prevent a torturous execution,” her attorneys wrote. “Second, the State’s protocol fails to make any contingency plans for when things go wrong. Finally, requiring a prisoner to select electrocution to avoid being isolated in the final weeks of their life is particularly cruel and arbitrary — especially for a prisoner like Christa, who was forced to live in solitary confinement for over 25 years and suffers from severe mental illness.”
The lawsuit also argued that Pike’s underlying medical conditions, including a blood-clotting condition, provided a “substantial risk that [Ms. Pike] will experience unnecessary superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace.”
Tennessee has previously faced problems with lethal injections
In 2024, Tennessee announced that it would abandon its previous three-drug lethal injection protocol and instead use the single drug pentobarbital. The change came after the state halted the planned execution of Oscar Smith in 2022 after officials discovered problems with the execution drugs and acknowledged that the drugs had not been tested properly.
The state’s execution protocol provides for a second set of drug syringes if an inmate is not deceased after the first set. It does not explicitly lay out what should happen if the inmate is alive after the second set.
The problems are not limited to Pike. In May, Tennessee postponed the execution of Tony Carruthers after officials were unable to establish a vein through which to administer the lethal injection. Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve.
TENNESSEE PREPARES TO EXECUTE THE FIRST WOMAN IN OVER 200 YEARS
The Death Penalty Information Center has reported that lethal injection has had the highest rate of botched executions among execution methods.
What happens to Pike now?
Pike’s attorneys have asked courts to immediately halt any further attempt to execute her, arguing that administering two doses of pentobarbital without killing her violated her constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
