The IV team tasked with executing murderer Christa Pike in Tennessee went through approximately 10 needles before injecting her with what was supposed to be a lethal double dose of pentobarbital, court documents filed by her attorney said.
Attorney Randy Spivey detailed what reportedly happened the evening Pike was supposed to be executed, Fox 35 reported Friday.
Christa Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state tried to execute her on Sept. 30 for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer.
— WGN TV News (@WGNNews) October 23, 2026
More: https://t.co/tIad3ps1Iw pic.twitter.com/kl9Mqwukag
“The IV team went through about 10 needles and tried several IV sites on both arms for nearly an hour leading up to the injections, attorney Randy Spivey wrote. Team members struggled to push saline through the last IV site. When they struggled, Pike helped, advising them to look in her upper arm for a viable vein,” the outlet said.
Spivey said the team kept working on Pike and some expressed doubts. More than 20 minutes after trying to insert the needles, one of the team speculated the vein may have blown.
“After the team tried again with a different spot in her left arm, the needle appeared to be severely bent when they pulled it out, Pike's attorney said,” the Fox report stated.
Pike’s attorney said she told them she felt a burning sensation in her arm before it appeared she was struggling to breathe.
“Spivey called fellow attorneys at 8:22 p.m. and asked them to stop the execution because a third dose of pentobarbital isn't authorized under the state's protocol,” the Fox article read.
Pike had initially demanded a lethal injection team of all women and that request was granted, according to Breitbart News.
She has become the first woman to survive lethal injection drugs during an execution attempt, and was in critical condition at a hospital following the botched execution. However, she later regained consciousness, reportedly walked around her hospital room, and has since been released from the hospital and placed behind bars once again at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville.
Pike was convicted of torturing and murdering Colleen Slemmer over 30 years ago.
This is Colleen Slemmer.
— Jennifer Greenberg 🕊️ (@JennMGreenberg) October 2, 2026
Remember HER name.
Remember HER life.
Remember HER suffering.
Remember HER rights.
Remember HER value, dignity, and worth.
Never forget who the victim is. pic.twitter.com/5tcebWtMi6
Fox News detailed the horrific crime, noting former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith said of Pike, “She represents pure evil”:
Led by 18-year-old Christa Pike, three classmates from a vocational school for troubled youths, the Knoxville Job Corps Center, lured Slemmer to her death by claiming they wanted to go to a music store and pick up marijuana they’d stashed in a park.
…
They tortured Slemmer for nearly an hour, Keith said, beating, cutting, and gagging her before crushing her skull against the ground with a chunk of broken asphalt.
When she tried to escape, they held her down. When she begged for her life, they slashed her with blades. And when she cried, they gagged her with a hair tie. Pike, 18 at the time and now 50, kept a fragment of Slemmer’s skull as a trophy and showed it off to classmates before her arrest. Her boyfriend at the time, who was also convicted but did not face the death penalty because he was only 17, carved pentagrams into her chest and face.
Christa Pike was sentenced to death, and that sentence should be carried out without further delay.
— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) October 22, 2026
Colleen Slemmer’s family deserves justice and peace.
More in my interview with @news5wcyb. pic.twitter.com/84Dpu2UccV
“Pike's legal team has renewed its request for Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without parole,” WPDE reported Thursday.
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