Christa Pike beat a 19-year-old to death with a chunk of asphalt in 1995.
Thirty-one years later, Tennessee finally strapped her to the execution table.
What happened next left Colleen Slemmer's family waiting for justice all over again.
Colleen Slemmer Was Tortured and Killed Over a Jealousy Dispute
Pike was 18 when she lured her classmate Colleen Slemmer into the woods near the University of Tennessee.
She threw Slemmer to the ground and kept kicking her while Shipp blocked her escape.
They cut her open again and again with a box cutter.
A pentagram was cut into her chest – Shipp later admitted he did it.
Pike ended it by caving in Slemmer's skull with a piece of broken asphalt.
She bragged about it afterward.
Pike held onto a fragment of Slemmer's skull like a trophy.
A jury heard all of it and sentenced Pike to death in 1996.
Thirty years of appeals, delays, and protocol reviews later, executioners finally tried to carry out the sentence on September 30.
They couldn't get the IV in from the start.
They used at least seven needles.
They administered two full doses of pentobarbital into what appear to have been blown veins.
Pike survived.
Tennessee Speaker Cameron Sexton put it plainly: "For 30 years the family of Colleen Slemmer has waited for the execution of their daughter's killer. While a few will argue the death penalty isn't humane – was Colleen's murder humane?"
Nobody is asking that question on CNN.
Amnesty International and NPR Are Demanding Tennessee Abolish the Death Penalty Over This
Within days of the failed execution, the media reaction was already in full swing.
Amnesty International called it "an extreme display of cruelty."
NPR and CNN both framed the botched execution as proof the death penalty itself is broken, with critics demanding a nationwide halt across all 27 states that still carry it out.
North Carolina activists renewed their push to abolish the death penalty entirely, pointing directly to Pike's case.
Frank Strada, the Tennessee corrections commissioner who oversaw the botched procedure, resigned within days.
The emergency motion filed by Pike's legal team cites medical experts comparing pentobarbital to "bleach" or "Drano."
That same filing casts their client as the one who suffered a harrowing ordeal.
Colleen Slemmer, the woman who was actually tortured to death, barely gets a mention in most national coverage of this story.
This is the left's standard playbook.
Find a procedural failure.
Manufacture sympathy for the guilty.
Bury the victim.
Use the outrage to push for broader policy change.
They did it with cop killers.
They did it with terrorists.
They're doing it now with a woman who kept a dead girl's skull as a trophy.
Tennessee Republicans Want the Execution Protocol Fixed, Not Ended
Here's what the left doesn't want you to notice: every Republican in Tennessee who responded to the botched execution said the same thing.
Fix the process.
Carry out the sentence.
Senator Marsha Blackburn didn't call for abolition – she called for the electric chair.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton called for an investigation into execution methods.
He specifically raised speeding up the appeals process, calling for the state to stop making grieving families wait decades for justice.
Congressman Tim Burchett wants Tennessee to adopt other methods entirely – he named hanging, the electric chair, and the firing squad, arguing they leave "very little room for mistakes."
Tennessee law already lets death row inmates sentenced for pre-1999 crimes – a category that includes Pike – pick the electric chair instead of lethal injection.
Expanding reliable methods isn't controversial – it's competence.
The problem in Nashville isn't capital punishment.
Tennessee has now botched two executions in five months.
The commissioner who presided over both failures previously oversaw three botched executions in Arizona.
Governor Bill Lee paused all remaining 2026 executions while ordering a third-party review.
That review is appropriate.
The pause is not.
Colleen Slemmer's Family Deserves an Execution That Actually Works
Colleen Slemmer's family has endured 30 years of hearings, appeals, and delays.
They watched Pike's legal team challenge the state's execution methods on religious and medical grounds.
They watched the state halt executions in 2022 to review its own protocol.
They watched it resume executions, fail Tony Carruthers in May, and fail Pike in September.
The Slemmer family is owed an execution that works.
They are not owed a philosophical debate about whether a killer deserves to live because of a medical mistake.
Tennessee needs to fix its execution protocol – not abandon it.
The electric chair works.
The firing squad works.
Both have been used successfully for over a century.
No activist lawyer can argue about vein access when the method doesn't use a vein.
The left will keep framing every failed execution as proof that the death penalty is barbaric.
The honest framing is simpler: Tennessee had an incompetent execution team and a protocol that has failed twice this year.
Fix the team.
Change the method.
Deliver the justice Colleen Slemmer has been waiting for since 1995.
Sources:
- Greg Wehner and Michael Ruiz, "Death row inmate unconscious on ventilator after botched execution for teen's killing: attorneys," Fox News, October 2, 2026.
- Cameron Sexton, statement via WSMV, "Focus of failed execution should be on Colleen Slemmer, who was tortured and murdered, not Christa Pike," October 1, 2026.
- Tennessee Star, "House Speaker Sexton Calls for Execution Protocol Changes After Christa Pike Survives Two Lethal Injections," October 2, 2026.
- FOX 17, "'Bring back the electric chair': Tenn. lawmakers react to failed execution of Christa Pike," October 1, 2026.
- Nashville Banner, "Tennessee Prepares to Execute Christa Pike for the Murder of Colleen Slemmer," September 14, 2026.
- WKRN, "TN lawmakers react after failed execution of Christa Pike," October 1, 2026.
