{"id":918347,"date":"2026-10-02T22:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T22:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918347\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T22:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T22:38:13","slug":"christa-pike-remains-on-ventilator-after-failed-execution-in-tennessee-tennessee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918347\/","title":{"rendered":"Christa Pike remains on ventilator after failed execution in Tennessee | Tennessee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christa Pike remained hospitalized, unconscious and on a machine helping her breathe after her failed execution<\/a> in Tennessee, her attorneys said in a court filing Friday.<\/p>\n

The attorneys said hospital staff were working to save Pike\u2019s life and clear the pentobarbital she was administered from her system as of late Thursday.<\/p>\n

Pike received two doses of the drug in a failed attempt<\/a> by the state of Tennessee to execute her on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In the court filing, Pike\u2019s attorneys said they believed problems with intravenous lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms Pike\u2019s body,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

They also wrote that instead of \u201cremedying this failure\u201d the execution team proceeded to prepare and administer a backup set of pentobarbital syringes.<\/p>\n

In a statement reported<\/a> on X by NewsNation journalist Brian Entin, Pike\u2019s attorneys described her as \u201ccritically ill and \u2026 receiving medical care for the devastating effects of Wednesday nights events\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working close with those closest to Christa to respect her wishes, safeguard her privacy and protect her rights as a patient during this extraordinarily difficult time,\u201d the statement also said. \u201cWe ask that the public and the media respect that privacy as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pike\u2019s attorneys on Friday asked a state court to order Tennessee\u2019s department of correction to preserve all evidence from her failed execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreserving this evidence is essential to understanding what happened, ensuring accountability and protecting Christa\u2019s legal rights,\u201d her attorneys\u2019 statement said.<\/p>\n

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in 1996 at the age of 20 in connection with the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike and her then boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, killed Slemmer at a job training camp in Knoxville, Tennessee.<\/p>\n

One grim detail about the case is that a pentagram had been carved into Slemmer\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n

After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, her attorneys said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I\u2019d done,\u201d Pike had said in an earlier petition for clemency. \u201cEven more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone\u2019s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the last execution of a woman in Tennessee was in 1820, meaning Pike would have been the first woman to be executed in the state in more than 200 years.<\/p>\n

Tennessee\u2019s failed attempt to execute Pike has prompted top lawyers, doctors and members of the faith community to call<\/a> for a moratorium on the death penalty in the US.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s governor, Bill Lee, has ordered a third-party investigation into Pike\u2019s botched execution. He has also paused executions in Tennessee.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christa Pike remained hospitalized, unconscious and on a machine helping her breathe after her failed execution in Tennessee,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":918348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-918347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}