Governor Pauses Executions After Notorious Killer Survives Lethal Injection

Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee put executions on hold in the state for the rest of the year after a botched lethal injection Wednesday night of notorious murderer Christa Pike. 

Lee said that he had asked for “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” after Pike survived two rounds of lethal injections. Pike has been on death row for three decades after she brutally tortured and killed a 19-year-old girl in 1995. She would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years. 

“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” Lee said. 

The Tennessee Department of Corrections said that it “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”

Pike committed the murder as an 18-year-old attending the Knoxville Job Corps when she invited 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into the woods with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Pike cut Slemmer’s throat, struck her with a meat cleaver and with a piece of asphalt before they carved a pentagram into her forehead and chest, according to court documents. Pike also kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull. 

Lee denied Pike’s request to escape the death penalty on Monday, and the Supreme Court cleared the way for it to move forward in a 6-3 decision on Wednesday. Pike’s legal team argued that she should be granted reprieve because of horrific sexual assault she experienced as a child. 

In the weeks leading up to the scheduled execution, Pike’s legal team requested an all-female lethal injection team or to be killed via firing squad or hanging. 

Earlier this year, Tennessee botched another execution when officials were unable to carry out the lethal injection protocol for murderer Tony Carruthers. Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve in May 2026 after the failed attempt, postponing his death sentence until May 2027. 

May Martinez, the mother of Slemmer, traveled to Nashville from Florida to witness the execution. She said that Pike never apologized for killing her daughter. 

“I’ll hold Colleen’s picture up to remind her of what she did,” Martinez said when asked by WBIR if she would address Pike at the execution. “Saying something to her and talking to her now, after all these years, that she never apologized — never even tried — or her family, what’s the point?”

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