Prison Chief Resigns After Death Row Execution Fails — Twice

Tennessee’s corrections commissioner resigned after a lethal injection of Christa Pike failed, leaving her alive and on a ventilator, and the state halted its remaining executions for the year.

Commissioner Frank Strada stepped down after the Wednesday night attempt. Gov. Bill Lee announced the resignation on October 3 and said an independent review would examine what went wrong. Strada had led the department since January 2023 and, in late 2024, said Tennessee would use only pentobarbital.

Pike, 50, received two doses. Staff used at least seven needles trying to find a vein. A Friday court filing from her lawyers said she cried, whimpered and breathed loudly. She was taken to a hospital, intubated and placed on a ventilator. The filing said staff mis-set the IV lines and missed that a vein had burst, so at least some of the drug entered her body.

Pike was convicted of the January 12, 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. At 18, Pike lured Slemmer into woods near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus. She and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, tortured Slemmer for about 30 minutes while 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson kept watch. Pike told investigators she believed Slemmer was interested in Shipp.

She was sentenced to death and became one of the youngest women sent to death row. An execution would have been the first of a woman in Tennessee since 1819. Shipp, 17 at the time, received life with parole and has not been released. Peterson pleaded guilty as an accessory, testified, and served 460 days.

Strada said stepping aside was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” and that the review was “entirely appropriate and necessary.” Lee said Strada had served with integrity and praised his “willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment.”

Pike’s lawyers said the failure “reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person” and hoped the review would “expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”

Lee asked the attorney general’s office to hire former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton for the review. Stanton led a 2022 review of the state’s lethal-injection protocol that forced a rewrite before executions resumed. The new review will ask whether protocol was followed and what should change. Lee postponed the remaining execution on this year’s calendar until that work is done.