Lawyers for Tennessee Woman in Botched Execution Say She’s Alive But in Critical Condition

By Adam Friedman

October 1, 2026 5:04 pm

 Emergency vehicles at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. The execution of death row inmate Christa Pike was halted nearly two hours after the state of Tennessee began the lethal injection protocol. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

Lawyers for Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike confirmed Thursday she is in critical condition and receiving life-saving medical care after her botched execution.

Pike was transported to a hospital Wednesday night after Tennessee halted her execution when two rounds of its lethal injection protocol failed. Media witnesses to the execution were told to leave the building when Pike could still be heard “snoring.”

Pike, 50, was set to be the first female put to death in Tennessee in nearly two centuries for the killing of her classmate Colleen Slemmer. Her lawyers are appealing to the court to stop her from being put to death after seeking a pause in the execution for a review of Pike’s history of sexual abuse and neglect as a child.

​Randy Spivey, one of Pike’s attorneys, said they had been warning of this exact outcome but that the court ignored it, adding that between Pike’s abuse as a child, solitary confinement in prison and now failed execution, she’s suffered more than any person should.

Gov. Bill Lee and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to give her a reprieve this week before the execution failed.

​“What she has endured over the past 30 years is in a class of its own,” Spivey said. “This should not happen again … the governor must commute her sentence now.”

When the execution failed Wednesday, Lee announced he would seek an independent investigation and pause all executions for the rest of 2026 but did not make an announcement about Pike’s sentence. Lee is term-limited and will leave office in January.