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What happens next after Christa Pike survived two doses of lethal injection?
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Christa Pike’s future remains unclear after Tennessee’s botched execution left her in dire shape.
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“Christa is critically ill but not in a coma, as I understand it,” her attorney Randy Spivey told TMZ , after she survived two doses of pentobarbital during an attempt to execute her at a Nashville maximum-security prison.
He added that she remains unconscious and unable to communicate.
Spivey also noted that Pike’s execution warrant expired, forcing the Tennessee Supreme Court to set a new date before the state can attempt to execute her again.
Pike was sentenced to death for the January 1995 murder of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer, after she and two others lured the victim to a remote area on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville and tortured her and beat her until she died.
Previous challenges
Pike’s attorneys, Spivey and Kelly Gleason, had challenged her execution by lethal injection before Wednesday, saying her blood disorder and small veins created a risk of complications, pain and bleeding.
They requested that the state consider alternatives such as death by firing squad or hanging.
“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,” they said in a statement following the failed execution attempt.
The Tennessee Department of Correction maintained that it followed established protocol and that lethal injection has “consistently been effective,” according to its own statement.
‘Joyous laugh and chuckle’
Pike laughed and sang a traditional Buddhist chant in the execution chamber during the attempt to put her to death.
WVLT reporter William Puckett said the laughing and repeated mantra started after the drugs were administered, before she appeared to be having “the best sleep of her life.”
Pike was still conscious and moving on the gurney after she was administered the lethal injection around 8:27 p.m. CT — which was supposed to kill her within minutes — when she suddenly let out “a joyous laugh and chuckle,” Puckett told the Daily Mail .
Before that, she had begun singing and repeating the words, “Be kind and gentle to yourself and may you be at peace.”
Even with the curtain closed, they could hear a “loud, deep in the back of the sinus cavity snore” like an old man sleeping, Puckett revealed, adding, “It was like she was getting the best sleep of her life.”
The curtain rose again three minutes later, and the execution team gave her another dose.
Four minutes later, Pike’s body twitched “abruptly” and she gave a “significant gasp for air,” Puckett recalled. The curtain closed again, but the snoring could be heard for another 50 minutes, he said.
Governor orders review
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he has halted scheduled executions for the rest of 2026, the only other one being convicted killer Gary Wayne Sutton’s, which was set for Dec. 3.
The governor ordered a review into Pike’s case, which follows another botched execution in May involving convicted murderer Tony Carruthers.
That execution was called off after officials were unable to establish a backup IV line, and Carruthers was granted a one-year reprieve.
“The Governor has appropriately called for an investigation,” the office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement. “We need to know what happened.”
Death penalty opponents argued that Pike’s execution attempt highlights the cruelty of capital punishment and called for state officials to make the results of the investigation public.
Spivey, however, said the governor’s call for a review isn’t enough and called for Lee to commute her sentence, saying she had endured punishment “greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.”