Christa Pike Execution 2026: Lethal Injection Not Completed, Witnesses Say
Bottom line: The date came — Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026 — and the execution was started but not finished. Pike was alive when witnesses left and was taken to a hospital, where her attorneys said she was in critical condition. The warrant has expired; no new date is set.
Key takeaways
- Pike has been under a death sentence since 1996 for the killing of Colleen Slemmer, 19, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. That was 31 years ago.
- She is the only woman on Tennessee's death row. The state has not put a woman to death in more than 200 years.
- Wednesday ran in three steps: a morning stay from the 6th Circuit, an evening Supreme Court order lifting it, and an injection that was not completed. The governor has since ordered an outside review, and the state's prison chief is resigning.
Was Christa Pike executed on Sept. 30?
No. The Associated Press, CBS News and NBC News all report the state was unable to carry it out, citing media witnesses and her attorneys' filings. The Department of Correction said late Wednesday that its team "followed every step" of the approved protocol, which allows nothing beyond what was done. It did not say why the drug failed.
Witnesses told AP that staff appeared to administer two doses of pentobarbital. Her lawyers then filed an emergency motion in federal court saying she "still has a heartbeat," and asking that the execution be stopped and that she get medical care. The curtain to the witness room was closed for stretches of the procedure, so reporters saw only part of it.
| Sept. 30 (Central time) | What happened |
|---|---|
| Morning | 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants a short stay, 2-1, less than two hours before the 10 a.m. start |
| Same morning | Tennessee's attorney general asks the U.S. Supreme Court to lift it |
| Evening | Supreme Court vacates the stay, 6-3 |
| Night | Lethal injection begins; witnesses report two doses |
| 8:53 p.m. | Media witnesses are escorted out |
| Late night | Defense files emergency motions; Pike is taken to an off-site medical facility; the Department of Correction and Gov. Lee issue statements |
| Midnight | The execution warrant expires |
By our count, close to 11 hours separated the original start time from the moment witnesses were sent out.
When was Christa Pike scheduled to be executed?
Sept. 30, 2026, at 10 a.m. Central (11 a.m. Eastern), by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The court order authorizing it ran only through midnight Wednesday, AP and ABC News reported.
Tennessee moved to a single-drug pentobarbital protocol in late 2024, replacing the three-drug method it used for years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
What was she convicted of?
The killing of Colleen Slemmer on Jan. 12, 1995, on the University of Tennessee agriculture campus in Knoxville. Slemmer was 19 and Pike was 18, and both were enrolled in the Job Corps program there.
Pike was 18. She was convicted and sentenced to death in March 1996, at 20, one of the youngest women ever sent to death row in the United States.
Court records describe a long and violent attack. We are not going to walk through it here; Slemmer's family has lived with those details in print for three decades, and the part that is still being decided has nothing to do with retelling them.
What happened to the other two teenagers?
Two other people were charged. Only Pike faced the death penalty.
| Name | Age in 1995 | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Christa Gail Pike | 18 | Convicted 1996, sentenced to death |
| Tadaryl Shipp | 17 | Life sentence, later parole-eligible |
| Shadolla Peterson | 18 | Testified for the prosecution; served no prison time |
Shipp was a juvenile at the time, and Pike was the only one of the three charged capitally, the Death Penalty Information Center notes. Peterson's cooperation is the reason much of the state's account exists. Age and mental health cut differently in every state — Wisconsin is still arguing about Morgan Geyser, who was 12 when she was charged.
👉 Pike was 18 and Shipp was 17. That gap is the whole difference between a life sentence and a death warrant.Who could have stopped it?
Going into Wednesday, the governor and the U.S. Supreme Court, and both had said no. Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday, Sept. 28 that he was "upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee" and did not plan to intervene. The clemency power was his alone.
Pike's legal team had filed the clemency petition on Sept. 3, asking that the sentence be commuted to life without parole. It leaned on her childhood — documented abuse, rape and neglect before she turned 18 — and on bipolar and post-traumatic stress diagnoses made after she was imprisoned.
The next stop was the U.S. Supreme Court. On Sept. 25 Pike's attorneys filed both a stay application and a certiorari petition, asking the justices whether the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment covers severe psychological pain — a PTSD flashback to a past rape, in her case — separately from physical pain.
On Tuesday, Sept. 29, the justices denied the stay without a written opinion, according to USA Today and WATE. By our count, the answer came four days after filing and one day before the date. It was not the last word.
The Sept. 30 stay, and how it ended
One request was still alive in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: a bid to reopen her federal habeas case over whether evidence of childhood sexual abuse was fully weighed at sentencing. On Wednesday morning a panel voted 2-1 for a short stay so it could study the briefs.
Tennessee's attorney general appealed at once. That evening the Supreme Court vacated the stay 6-3 without giving reasons. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, arguing the appeals court should have been left to finish its review.
What have the courts already decided?
In January she filed a religious challenge to the execution protocol, arguing in part that it limits clergy access in the final hours. She has also argued that a blood-clotting condition makes pentobarbital especially risky for her.
On Aug. 21 a special master, Judge Mark Ward, found she had not met the legal standard, and reported that the execution could proceed.
The Tennessee Supreme Court's ruling
In the last days before the date, the state's highest court sided with the special master. The justices found her lawyers hadn't shown that thrombocytosis, her blood condition, would make the injection play out in a way that breaks the Eighth Amendment.
One earlier fight she did win: a 2024 settlement moved her out of solitary confinement after 28 years, per the Death Penalty Information Center.
Why is this getting national attention now?
A woman's execution would be a first for the state in two centuries; the defendant was barely an adult when the crime happened; and now there is an execution that began and did not finish. Capital cases rarely get this far now — Idaho's plea deal took the death penalty off the table for Bryan Kohberger before a jury was ever picked.
Sinclair stations aired a documentary on the case, "Dead Woman Walking." None of the three network newsmagazines has an episode scheduled. A late addition would show up first in the week's night-by-night grid; our viewing guide lists where each show streams, and the Dateline page has Friday's episode.
What else was on the court calendar in early October?
Larry Millete's San Diego sentencing was set for Sept. 29 in a murder with no body and was pushed to Nov. 2; the same morning a Massachusetts judge took up what happens after the Lindsay Clancy mistrial. In Ohio, the jury in Caleb Flynn's murder trial returned guilty verdicts on Sept. 29, and he was sentenced to life without parole on Oct. 5.
On Monday, Oct. 5, the Naresh Bhatt trial started in Virginia with jury selection. The Indiana Court of Appeals heard Richard Allen's appeal in the Delphi case on Sept. 21 and had not ruled as of Sunday, Oct. 4. Everything we are following sits in Case Updates.
What is still unknown?
| Open question | Where it stood Saturday, Oct. 10 |
|---|---|
| What went wrong | The Department of Correction says the protocol was followed and that the drug "has consistently been effective." It has not said why two doses did not work. Her attorneys' filing says the IV lines were not placed correctly or the veins had blown. Gov. Lee's order calls for "a comprehensive, third-party review," and the state has retained former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to conduct it. Commissioner Frank Strada's resignation was announced Oct. 3. |
| Pike's condition | Her attorneys said in a filing on Friday, Oct. 2 that she was unconscious and on a ventilator at a Nashville-area hospital as of Thursday night, with staff working to flush the pentobarbital from her system. On Sunday, Oct. 4, attorney Stephen Ferrell told CNN she had not regained consciousness and remained on a ventilator, and that her lawyers may not know her prognosis for several days, AP reported. On Tuesday, Oct. 6, her attorneys said she is conscious and speaking, and the Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed she remains hospitalized, per ABC News. At the Wednesday, Oct. 7 hearing, attorney Luke Ihnen told the court she is speaking "limitedly," ABC News and WSMV reported. On Saturday, Oct. 10, her attorneys said she had been discharged from the hospital and returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she continues to receive medical care, Reuters and AP reported; they had said days earlier that she was walking with assistance and eating, with the long-term effects still unknown. |
| A new date | None is set. Wednesday's order has lapsed, and the Tennessee Supreme Court would have to issue a new one, per AP. Lee said the one other execution on the 2026 schedule is off for this year. |
| The pending motions | Her lawyers went to the federal district court, the 6th Circuit and the Tennessee Supreme Court on Wednesday night. They also asked a Davidson County court to order evidence preserved. On Wednesday, Oct. 7, Chancellor I'Ashea Myles of Davidson County Chancery Court granted that motion after hearing from both sides, ABC News and WSMV reported. The evidence covered includes photographs, video and audio recordings, the drugs, syringes and IV lines in the state's possession, and notes and logs, per ABC News. The judge held off on a defense request to remove Pike's hospital restraints until she receives information from the hospital, WSMV reported. |
Colleen Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, told AP she thinks about her daughter every day, and told NBC News she planned to be at the prison. Her family ended Wednesday still waiting.
FAQ
Was Christa Pike executed? No. The lethal injection began on Wednesday, Sept. 30 and was not completed, and the warrant expired at midnight.
Is Christa Pike still alive? Yes, as of Saturday, Oct. 10. She was alive when witnesses left at 8:53 p.m. Central on Sept. 30 and was taken to a Nashville-area hospital, where she spent time on a ventilator. Her attorneys said on Tuesday, Oct. 6 that she was conscious and speaking, ABC News reported, and on Saturday, Oct. 10 they said she had been discharged and returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she is still getting medical care, Reuters and AP reported.
Did the Supreme Court deny Christa Pike? Twice in two days. On Sept. 29 it denied her stay request, and on Sept. 30 it voted 6-3 to lift the 6th Circuit's stay.
Who was Colleen Slemmer? A 19-year-old from Florida enrolled in the Knoxville Job Corps program, where she and Pike knew each other.
Sources
- Reuters, via The Spokesman-Review — Oct. 10 discharge and return to prison; attorneys' joint statement
- Associated Press, via Al Jazeera — Oct. 10 discharge, continuing medical care in prison
- Tennessee Lookout — Oct. 1: governor orders third-party review, pauses executions for the rest of the year
- ABC News — Oct. 7 ruling granting the motion to preserve evidence
- WSMV (Nashville) — Oct. 7 hearing, live updates
- ABC News — attorneys' Oct. 6 statement on her condition, status conference
- Associated Press, via U.S. News — attorney's Oct. 4 statement on her condition
- Associated Press, via PBS News — attorneys' Oct. 2 filing on her condition
- ABC News — Strada resignation, evidence motion
- Nashville Banner — Strada resignation, Ed Stanton review
- Associated Press, via NPR — governor's review
- WSMV (Nashville) — governor and prison agency statements
- Associated Press, via WPLN — execution not carried out, witnesses say
- CBS News — emergency motion, 8:53 p.m. exit
- NBC News — attorneys' filing, dissent, warrant
- ABC News — 2-1 stay, 6-3 order, midnight warrant
- WSMV (Nashville) — media witness accounts
- Tennessee Lookout — execution halted
- USA Today, via Yahoo News — Sept. 29 stay denial
- WATE (Knoxville) — Sept. 29 stay denial
- NewsChannel 5 Nashville — Gov. Lee's Sept. 28 statement
- WVLT (Knoxville) — clemency denial
- U.S. Supreme Court docket — Sept. 25 stay application
- WATE, via Yahoo News — Tennessee Supreme Court ruling
- Sinclair/ABC45 — state stay denied
- WVLT — Sept. 3 clemency petition
- NewsChannel 5 — conviction, special master
- Death Penalty Information Center — protocol, religious challenge
- Nashville Banner — the defense case
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