NASHVILLE, Tenn.-- Tennessee officials haven’t explained yet what went wrong during the failed execution of Christa Pike, which was called off after she was given an initial and a backup dose of the drug meant to kill her. It wasn’t clear if Pike was still alive on Thursday. She could be heard snoring loudly in the execution chamber Wednesday night more than an hour after the execution process began and nearly 30 minutes after a second, backup dose of pentobarbital was administered. Pike, who was sentenced to death for a gruesome 1995 murder, was taken by ambulance from the prison to a hospital, where she was being treated, her attorneys said. It was the second time this year that Tennessee has been unable to complete an execution, though in the other case, officials couldn’t find a suitable vein for an IV line so the drugs weren’t administered. May Martinez, whose daughter was murdered by Pike and her boyfriend and who travelled to Nashville to see the sentence carried out, told NBC News that “it was a mess.” Governor halts another 2026 execution The failure, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led Gov. Bill Lee to order a review and to indefinitely postpone Pike’s execution and Tennessee’s lone other one that had been scheduled for this year. It also reignited the debate over the state’s execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections. “There are very few answers this morning. It’s very early,” Lee told reporters Thursday at an unrelated event, noting he had received no updates on Pike’s condition. “The people of our state deserve to have those questions answered.” He called what happened “deeply disturbing” and said it appeared prison staff followed procedure. Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution Wednesday morning 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 execution an hour before it was to start, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that stay hours later. Officials gave Pike two doses of pentobarbital, her attorneys said in court filings late Wednesday. The drug has been used in executions in multiple states and by the federal government, but there have been concerns raised about the potential for “unnecessary pain and suffering.” The Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement that it “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.” Tennessee changed its execution method two years ago 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 it had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs had been tested properly. 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 an 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. Executions in the U.S. have fallen sharply since the beginning of this century amid growing public opposition and concerns about the costs and the drugs used. But the number of executions nearly doubled last year behind a record increase in Florida. Pike would have been the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year. Pike was awake in the execution chamber Strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber, Pike described herself as at peace. When asked if she had any last words, Pike said several things, including, “I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free. ... This is a happy day.” But she remained awake and at one point raised her head, asking prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way. The chamber’s curtains were closed, suggesting it had been five minutes since the first dose was administered. But they were reopened three minutes later. An hour after officials first raised the curtains, witnesses reported that a second dose of pentobarbital was administered. Pike could still be heard snoring behind a closed curtain until the microphone was cut off almost 30 minutes later. Lawyers for Pike filed an emergency motion with the Tennessee Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and the procedure violated her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment. They also filed motions with two other courts. Last May, Tennessee officials called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing three people in 1994, after executioners tried for over an hour but failed to find a suitable vein for a backup IV line. Pike didn’t deny her role in the killing Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate. The killing stoked fears of Satan worship because of a pentagram carved on Slemmer’s body. Pike’s boyfriend wasn’t eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the killing and received a sentence of life in prison. He was denied parole last year. Pike didn’t dispute that she helped kill Slemmer, but supporters argued that Pike’s age at the time of the murder, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse should be considered. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder after the killing. “It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,” she once said. Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, Ed White in Detroit, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
