Tennessee’s planned execution of 50-year-old Krista Gail Pike turned into a nightmare after prison officials reportedly failed to complete the lethal injection, according to journalists who witnessed the procedure, and she was ultimately taken to hospital

Pike was due to be executed on Wednesday for a murder she committed in 1995, when she was 18. Had the execution gone ahead, she would have been the first woman sentenced to death in Tennessee in at least 200 years.

The procedure had already been delayed for hours while the courts considered a last-minute appeal. About an hour before the scheduled time, the US Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling that had temporarily blocked the lethal injection, effectively giving the authorities the green light to proceed.

Pike has been taken to hospital after her execution by lethal injection in Tennessee was not completed, as her heart continued to beat even after two doses of pentobarbital had been administered.

According to one of her lawyers, speaking to the BBC, Pike is now in hospital following the unprecedented ordeal that unfolded on Wednesday evening at the Riverbend maximum security institution in Nashville.

Her legal team had earlier filed an emergency request for the execution to be halted while it was already under way, stating that “Ms Pike has lost consciousness, still has a heartbeat and can be heard snoring”.

BREAKING: “I’ve witnessed, I believe, 5 executions in Tennessee. Nothing about today was normal, typical at all.”

Shocking new details emerge from the failed attempt to execute Christa Pike, the 50-year-old inmate who has spent nearly 30 years on Tennessee’s death row.

At a… pic.twitter.com/gDofxP1Lz5

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 1, 2026

The two doses and the closing of the curtain

According to the Associated Press, citing media representatives who watched the procedure, prison staff appeared to administer two doses of pentobarbital, the drug used for executions.

At 7.46pm, prison officials closed the curtain separating the execution chamber from the room where the journalists were seated. It reopened three minutes later. At that point, according to the same accounts, Pike could be heard snoring loudly.

This is health reporter Catherine Sweeney, WPLN, talking about the dosage being given to Christa Pike twice and what happened after.

"According to the protocol, there should have been 2 in series A, and then 2 more in series B…"

How could this have happened again? pic.twitter.com/TZ7vt17xPP

— Kentucky Girl (@Kentuckygirl1) October 1, 2026

At 8.06pm the curtain was closed again, and the 50-year-old’s snoring continued to be heard from the sealed chamber. At around 8.53pm the microphone was switched off and, shortly afterwards, journalists were told they had to leave the area.

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction told media representatives that they were unable to provide immediate information on exactly what had happened. Meanwhile, emergency vehicles were seen entering and leaving the prison grounds.

Pike’s lawyers later said their client had been taken to hospital, where efforts were being made to keep her alive.

Urgent appeal to the Supreme Court

According to the news agency, Pike’s lawyers filed an urgent request with the US Supreme Court late on Wednesday, asking for the procedure to be halted immediately. In their appeal, they argued that the 50-year-old was in a state of agony and that the way the execution was unfolding violated her constitutional right to be free from “cruel and unusual punishment”.

Applications were also lodged with both the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and a federal district court. Her legal team further asked the prison authorities to begin life-saving measures. “Failing to provide such care amounts to deliberate indifference to legitimate and serious medical needs,” they stated.

The murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer

Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she, together with her then 17-year-old boyfriend and a female friend, lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student on the Job Corps vocational training programme, into a wooded area, where they tortured and killed her.

The sickening nature of the murder received widespread media coverage at the time. The killers carved a pentagram into the victim’s chest and removed a piece of her skull, which they kept as a souvenir.

Testimony indicated that Pike regarded Slemmer as a rival because she had developed an obsession with Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Pike and Shipp confessed to the crime and were both convicted of premeditated murder a year later. Pike was sentenced to death, while Shipp received life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.

Their co-defendant, Shadolla Peterson, who was 18 at the time of the crime and acted as a lookout, testified for the prosecution and was placed under court supervision.

Pike was also convicted in August 2001 of attempted murder in connection with an attack on a fellow inmate, according to Tennessee prison authorities.

In a 226-page petition asking the governor to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment without parole, her lawyers cited Pike’s life experiences. She had been a victim of violence in childhood and suffered repeated sexual abuse and neglect, and she was raped on two occasions, at the ages of 11 and 17. They also set out the diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder that Pike received in prison.

Second failed execution in the same year

This is the second time this year that the Tennessee authorities have failed to complete a scheduled execution. In May, the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who had been convicted of the abduction and murder of three people in 1994, was called off at the last moment.

In that case, the executioners had spent more than an hour trying unsuccessfully to place an intravenous line in order to administer the pentobarbital, and the authorities eventually halted the procedure.