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KLZ News — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has halted executions in the state after officials were unable to carry out the lethal injection of death-row inmate Christa Gail Pike despite administering two rounds of the execution drug.

The extraordinary sequence followed hours of legal maneuvering Wednesday that saw Pike’s scheduled execution stopped by a federal appeals court and then revived by the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Wednesday night, however, the question was no longer whether Pike would be executed. It was how she had remained alive after the state’s execution procedure had already begun.

Supreme Court Clears the Way

Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution Wednesday morning at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

About an hour before the scheduled execution, a divided panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay while considering claims concerning whether Pike’s history of childhood sexual abuse had been adequately weighed during sentencing.

Tennessee appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

Hours later, the justices allowed the execution to proceed. The majority did not provide a detailed explanation for its decision. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Two Doses — But Pike Remains Alive

The execution process resumed Wednesday evening.

Media witnesses reported that Pike was strapped to a gurney and delivered what were expected to be her final words.

Tennessee’s execution protocol calls for pentobarbital to be administered and allows a second set of syringes to be used if the prisoner has not died.

According to court filings from Pike’s attorneys, officials administered both sets.

But Pike remained alive.

Witnesses reported that she could still be heard breathing or snoring after the second dose. Her attorneys filed emergency motions seeking to stop the procedure, arguing that continuing it would subject her to unconstitutional suffering.

Pike was eventually removed from the prison by ambulance and transported to a hospital.

Governor Orders Outside Investigation

Hours after the failed execution attempt, Gov. Bill Lee announced that Tennessee would not carry out its remaining scheduled execution this year.

Lee also ordered what he described as a comprehensive third-party review into exactly what happened.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said it followed the state’s established execution protocol.

That protocol, however, does not clearly spell out what prison officials should do if a prisoner remains alive after receiving both sets of lethal-injection drugs.

A Murder Dating Back More Than 30 Years

Pike was convicted of murdering Slemmer in Knoxville in January 1995, when Pike was 18.

Prosecutors said Pike, her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and another young woman lured Slemmer into a wooded area before Slemmer was beaten, cut and fatally attacked.

The crime attracted national attention because of its brutality and because a pentagram had been carved into Slemmer’s body.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996.

Her attorneys have argued in subsequent appeals that jurors did not adequately hear evidence about Pike’s childhood abuse, trauma and mental-health history. Prosecutors and Slemmer’s family have argued that decades of appeals should not prevent the sentence imposed by the jury from being carried out.

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, had traveled to Nashville hoping to witness the execution after waiting more than three decades for the sentence to be completed.

New Questions for Tennessee

The failed attempt comes after Tennessee also abandoned the May execution of Tony Carruthers when personnel were unable to successfully establish intravenous access.

Tennessee changed its execution protocol in 2024, moving from a three-drug combination to pentobarbital alone.

The latest incident now leaves state officials confronting legal, medical and procedural questions before another execution can move forward.

For Pike, meanwhile, the legal fight continues under circumstances virtually no one expected: she received the state’s lethal-injection drugs under a valid death warrant — and survived.