By: Elianna Tsigler
After spending three decades on death row, the date for Christa Gail Pike’s execution arrived. On Sept. 30, 2026, the state carried out the sentence—yet, after two doses of the lethal injection, Pike was still alive.
In 1996, Christa Pike was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder after killing Colleen Slemmer, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction Offender Search Records.
On Jan. 12, 1995, Slemmer was lured out to a spot “[…] behind the agriculture campus steam plant on […] by three of her fellow Job Corps participants,” including Pike’s boyfriend at the time, Tadayrl Shipp, and Shadolla Peterson.
According to an appeal by Pike to the Sixth Circuit Court, Slemmer was tortured for around 30 minutes to an hour. Within this time, she was subjected to severe and repeated head trauma along with the carving of satanic symbols on her person.
Because Pike was 18 at the time of the murder, she was eligible to be sentenced to death, the first woman since 1820 to be sentenced to death in Tennessee, according to page 360 of The ESPY File Executions by State between 1608-2002.
With this arrangement made, Pike’s lawyers filed a motion claiming that due to her medical history, there were concerns that Pike’s documented history of small veins and thrombocytosis—a condition characterized by an abnormally high platelet count in the blood—would cause “severe complications during lethal injection.” They moved for death by hanging instead, as “hanging, by contrast, eliminates all IV-related risks,” but the state upheld its decision and proceeded with death by lethal injection.
Although there have been complications with death by lethal injection in the past, the drug was never administered in said cases. In Pike’s case, she received two rounds of the injection.
A statement from the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) confirmed that “Ms. Pike is the first person to survive after being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs.”
According to court documents accessed through CourtListener, a legal database maintained by Free Law Project—a non-profit organization established to expand access to legal information—on Oct. 1, 2026, Pike’s counsel member, Stephen A. Ferrel, made a statement regarding the status of proceedings.
“Ms. Pike remained conscious, and media witnesses reported bodily movement. The execution team eventually injected Ms. Pike with a second syringe of pentobarbital. She still did not die. The entire execution process lasted longer than two hours,” stated Ferrel.
Catherine Sweeney, a witness to the execution, stated that Pike told Mikey Noechel, her spiritual advisor, something was going wrong.
“Pike told Noechel her arm was burning. She said it was in one specific spot and asked corrections staff in the room whether that was normal,” Sweeney told NPR.
Dr. Mark Heath, an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, told the New York Times that “the pain in her arm should have been a bright red flag that the IV was infiltrating.”
But, in Pike’s case, “medical experts said it was also possible that there had been something wrong with the pentobarbital itself,” reported the New York Times.
Prior to 2009, The United States of America used sodium thiopental—which is a barbiturate anesthetic—as the first drug in a three-drug procedure for executions. However, “in 2009, the maker of […] sodium thiopental stopped production in the United States,” according to The NY Times.
Correctional facilities could no longer obtain these drugs after major pharmaceutical companies halted their production; therefore, a replacement for the previous drug was made.
Anna Gotlib, a former attorney and current Brooklyn College professor, provided further insight into the new manufacturing of the drug.
“Due to the previous companies that made these drugs not wanting their products to be used in association with the death penalty, the United States had to find a way to produce its own drug for execution. Their alternative, pentobarbital, is made in compounding pharmacies, which are smaller pharmacies—not like CVS or other large companies—that prepare drugs rather than relying on large pharmaceutical manufacturers.”
Gotlib adds, “However, compounding pharmacies don’t have the same manufacturers and regulatory history—and thus experience—to produce some medications, including the ones used for execution.”
In 2010, America was introduced to the drug when the state of Oklahoma switched to the use of pentobarbital as the first drug used in the process. But following a botched execution, the state transitioned to using pentobarbital as the sole drug for the lethal injection, according to DPI.
Concerns surrounding the use of this drug also extend to those administering it
As reported by The New York Times, “The injections were often administered by correctional workers with limited medical training.”
Gotlib confirmed that “The people who administer during execution are often unqualified,” and “can’t find a vein or inject the wrong amount.”
Dr. Mark Fowler, who oversaw and administered the drug in Pike’s execution, also did the same in Tony Carruthers’ case, which was another failed execution attempt that took place in May 2026.
Following his failed execution, Carruthers’ sister filed a medical malpractice case against Fowler, according to the Tennessee Bar Association (TBA).
Fowler faced more scrutiny as it resurfaced that he admitted in a deposition in 2025 to have “only placed about a dozen central lines during his career, and had not done so since 2013,” according to the People.
As stated in the TBA, he also possessed an active Tennessee medical license at the time of Carruthers’ execution, but it had been restricted, removing his hospital privileges.
Other medical professionals have refused to partake in state executions, as their code of ethics, the American Medical Association code of ethics, explicitly prevents them from doing so.
The failed execution has continued to be a point of confusion for Pike’s legal team; as stated in their Notice Regarding Status of Proceedings, they believed that “after struggling to find a vein and using numerous different needles to try to obtain venous access, the execution team injected Ms. Pike with pentobarbital.”
Since Oct. 10, 2026, Pike has been discharged from a local hospital and is now back at Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Gotlib feels that this case has put the justice system in uncharted territory.
“This case, if it does go to the Supreme Court, will set a new precedent in terms of the death penalty,” Gotlib says. “What happened during the failed execution changes the situation. This is grounds for an 8th Amendment challenge, as prior failed lethal injection attempts were stopped due to being unable to establish IV access before the drugs were given; here, all the drugs were administered.”
Currently, the state has ordered the prison to withhold all evidence related to the failed execution, and the Governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, has canceled the remaining executions scheduled for this year.