Witness Says Christa Pike Execution Attempt ‘Went Really Poorly’

Tennessee Department of Correction

A witness to Tennessee’s attempted execution of Christa Pike said the procedure “went really poorly” Wednesday night after officials administered two rounds of pentobarbital. The 50-year-old was still breathing when reporters were escorted from the chamber.

Pike was scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. But witnesses left the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution with questions about what happened inside after a dramatic day of legal maneuvering delayed the execution for hours.

According to a reporter from Nashville’s WKRN, Pike received two doses of drugs and remained alive when members of the media were told to leave. At one point, Pike lifted her head and looked around, witnesses said. She also complained of a burning sensation and asked whether it was normal.

One witness, who said she covered every Tennessee execution last year, offered a stark assessment of Wednesday night’s events to the outlet: “It went really poorly.”

An ambulance with its lights flashing was later seen leaving the facility while witnesses spoke to reporters outside, according to WKRN.

The execution had initially been halted Wednesday morning when a federal appeals court said it wanted additional time to consider whether Pike’s history of childhood sexual abuse and rape had been adequately presented before she was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

Tennessee then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which voted 6-3 Wednesday evening to lift the stay and allow the state to proceed before Pike’s death warrant expired. The court’s three liberal justices dissented.

The decision set off a race to carry out the execution Wednesday night, hours after it had originally been scheduled.

Witnesses said the blinds to the execution chamber were closed at certain points during the procedure and reopened at others, leaving them with unanswered questions about what occurred out of view.

Pike’s attorneys – Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason of the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender, and Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen from Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee – issued a statement after the attempted execution.

“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” the statement read. “We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.”

The attorneys added that Pike “is being treated at a nearby hospital” and that they “have not been informed as to her condition.”

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