Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike has been taken to hospital after surviving two doses of a lethal drug during an attempted execution, in an unprecedented failure of the state’s execution procedure.
Pike, 50, was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom she killed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Officials administered two doses of pentobarbital, but witnesses reported that Pike remained alive, breathing and audibly snoring. Her lawyers later said she was transported by ambulance to a hospital, although they had not been informed of her medical condition.
The failed execution followed a series of legal developments. An appeals court initially halted the execution shortly before it was due to begin, but the US Supreme Court later allowed Tennessee to proceed.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has since halted the state’s remaining scheduled execution for 2026 and ordered an independent review of what happened. State corrections officials said the established execution protocol had been followed.
The case has renewed scrutiny of lethal-injection procedures and capital punishment in the United States.
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