A woman, convicted of the horrific slashing death years ago of a teen girl she apparently believed to be a rival for her boyfriend, has survived two attempts by officials in the state of Tennessee to carry out her court-approved execution.
Christa Pike, now 50, was hospitalized and her condition was not being reported after two attempts at her execution by lethal injection.
Lawyers for Pike confirmed that she was given two syringes of pentobarbital, and she remained alive and was snoring.
The state allows a second syringe should the first attempt fail, but has no approved procedure for two that fail.
Her execution had been scheduled Wednesday morning but was delayed by an appeals court order. It went forward when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that delay.
Her legal team, late in the evening, confirmed she was in a nearby hospital and was being treated.
In January 1995 when she was 18, she and two other Job Corps students lured Colleen Slemmer, 19, onto the University of Tennessee agriculture campus in Knoxville. The victim was beaten and cut to death, suffering hundreds of slash injuries. A pentagram was carved into her body.
Reports confirmed, “Pike kept a piece of her skull.”
Another involved got a life sentence and the third testified and got probation.
Tennessee officials were unable to put Christa Gail Pike to death for a 1995 murder Wednesday, media witnesses said. Her lawyers filed an emergency motion late Wednesday to the US Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary…
— CNN (@CNN) October 1, 2026
NEW: After an attempted execution, attorneys for Christa Pike with the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender said she was being treated at a nearby hospital and said they had not been informed of her condition.https://t.co/O2vxXWzZHi
— ABC News (@ABC) October 1, 2026
BREAKING: “I’ve witnessed, I believe, 5 executions in Tennessee. Nothing about today was normal, typical at all.”
Shocking new details emerge from the failed attempt to execute Christa Pike, the 50-year-old inmate who has spent nearly 30 years on Tennessee’s death row.
At a… pic.twitter.com/gDofxP1Lz5
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 1, 2026
Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike Wednesday night and couldn’t finish the job. Two doses of pentobarbital. Forty minutes after the last one she was still awake, still had a heartbeat, still snoring.
Curtain dropped twice. Media witnesses walked out before anyone told them…
— IredcapI (@IredcapI) October 1, 2026
US death row inmate Christa Pike taken to hospital after surviving two lethal injections, says lawyer https://t.co/rxaDO9gv82
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) October 1, 2026
Even as media witnesses were speaking at a scheduled press conference, an ambulance pulled up to the prison to transport Pike.
District Judge Clifton L. Corker issued the ruling confirming that “medical personnel have begun to administer medical care” following the failed procedures.
