Failed Execution of the First Woman Sentenced to Death in Tennessee in More Than 200 Years: Christa Pike Still Alive After Two Lethal Injections

Christa Pike, 50, was still alive Wednesday night after being administered two lethal injections, according to her lawyers in an emergency motion filed with a federal court seeking to halt her execution. At 8:26 p.m., witnesses reported that "executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring." Her lawyers added that she "has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat."

The procedure, which was meant to carry out her death sentence for the brutal murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995, deviated from standard protocol. Journalists present described Pike complaining of pain and kicking her feet so often that she knocked off the sheets covering her, while an ambulance was seen arriving at the prison and then leaving. It is the second time this year that an execution has not gone as planned in Tennessee. In May, Tony Carruthers was granted a one-year temporary reprieve after executioners were unable to find a vein for a backup IV line.

The judicial back-and-forth that led her to the execution chamber

The Supreme Court had cleared the way for the execution this Wednesday. The high court's ruling came just hours after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay "until further notice" while it reviewed motions filed by both Pike's lawyers and the Tennessee Attorney General's Office. The state immediately appealed to the Supreme Court, which ultimately sided with it in a decision that, according to Fox News, drew dissent from Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sotomayor argued that the 6th Circuit should have had time to review Pike's pending legal appeal before the execution proceeded. "In capital cases, '[a]ppreciation of our own fallibility, and respect for the judgment of an appellate tribunal,' demand caution before 'acting irretrievably,'" she wrote.

The crime for which Pike was convicted occurred in 1995, when she was 18 years old. Together with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and a third person, Shadolla Peterson, she beat, kicked and stabbed to death Colleen Slemmer, her 19-year-old classmate in a job training program in Knoxville. According to court documents cited by Fox News, Pike herself acknowledged that the attack lasted between half an hour and an hour.

The case file details that Pike accused Slemmer of trying to "trying to get [her] boyfriend" and of "running her mouth." The day before the murder, she admitted to another friend that she wanted to kill her because "just felt mean that day." To carry out the crime, she brought a pocket knife and a butcher's knife with her, and together with her accomplices, she tricked the victim under the pretext of going to a nearby park to get marijuana.

Once there, Pike beat her to the ground. When Slemmer tried to escape — succeeding momentarily — Shipp, the defendant's boyfriend, held her down while Pike continued to cut her with the razor blade. They gagged her with a hair tie while she begged for her life. Shipp also carved pentagrams into her face and chest.

During the trial, forensic psychiatrist William Bernet testified that the murder contained "satanic elements," but that it also fit what he described as a phenomenon of "collective aggression," in which a group becomes emotionally aroused until it ends up embroiled in a severely violent crime. Another expert witness, Eric Engum, said that Pike had been diagnosed with a "very severe" borderline personality disorder, as well as cannabis dependence and depression, although he ruled out brain damage or any condition that would render him not criminally responsible.

The court record also details that Pike showed no remorse for his act, as she kept a fragment of the victim's skull as a trophy and later showed it at school, recounting how Slemmer had begged them to stop.

According to Fox News, she also told a friend that she had slashed the victim's neck several times and then crushed his head with a rock; she showed another classmate her bloodstained sneakers, and the next day she brought the skull fragment to breakfast.

Neither Shipp nor Peterson received the death penalty. Shipp was a minor at the time of the crime, which made him ineligible for the death penalty, while Peterson ultimately testified for the prosecution.