Christa Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of her 19-year-old Knoxville Job Corps classmate Colleen Slemmer.

Prosecutors said Pike, who feared Slemmer was a romantic rival, lured her to a secluded area where she and her boyfriend attacked her with a box cutter and a large piece of asphalt.

Pike’s lawyers argued that her death sentence was unfair because she was 18 at the time and jurors were not told about the sexual abuse she said she had suffered from childhood.

Pike’s attorneys have said she experienced an exceptionally traumatic and abusive childhood.

Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike was sexually abused starting from when she was a toddler and that she was raped at ages 11 and 17.

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, witnessed Wednesday’s failed execution attempt and said her daughter had not received justice.

“I watched the whole thing. She was awake. She was laughing. She was moving her head, moving her feet. She was trying to sit up,” she said.

Pike’s then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, admitted carving a pentagram into Slemmer’s body. He was 17 at the time and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Donald Trump has responded to the botched execution of Christa Pike, calling it an “interesting situation”.

Asked by reporters whether he would push for changes to capital punishment following the failed execution in Tennessee, the US president said the matter was for state authorities.

“Well, that was an interesting situation, but you’re going to have to speak to Tennessee about it, whether or not they’re going to go forward,” Mr Trump said.

He turned to his aides, asking: “You know what that was about. That was an execution where the medication didn’t exactly work.”

Mr Trump then turned to Republican congressman Ronny Jackson, a physician who previously served as his White House doctor, and asked: “How does that happen? He’s a great doctor.”

Mr Jackson replied: “I don’t know how that happens. It should be easy to do.”

“It shouldn’t be very difficult,” Mr Trump added.

It is not the first time Tennessee governor Bill Lee has ordered an investigation into the state’s use of capital punishment.

An independent review four years ago found that Tennessee had failed to follow its own execution protocols and properly test lethal injection drugs. The investigation followed an execution that was halted in April 2022 over the mishandling of drugs.

In May, Tennessee also stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after medical workers were unable to establish a second IV line despite attempts using his arm, hand and foot, as well as a central line.

Lee subsequently ordered officials to wait at least a year before attempting to execute Carruthers again.

The execution team went through at least seven needles while trying to find a vein in Christa Pike’s arms to administer the lethal dose of the injection for her execution, her lawyers said.

Her lawyer Randy Spivey said one of the needles that was pulled out from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt was bent.

Medical experts said there were signs that the two intravenous catheters may have allowed the drug to leak into tissue around the insertion sites instead of delivering it directly into Pike’s bloodstream.

They said this could have been caused by the placement of the catheters, the fragility of Pike’s veins or another factor.

Her lawyers said doctors had previously struggled to find veins during blood draws and that Pike has a blood disorder that makes the problem worse.

During the execution attempt, her lawyers said she even tried to help the staff place the two IV lines.

“She over and over again said, ‘Please, try up on my shoulder higher, please try here, please try here,’” Spivey said.

7.27pm: Christa Pike was strapped to a gurney with an IV in her arm as her scheduled execution began. She said: “I’m ready to be free. This is a happy day.”

7.37pm: Pike remained conscious and complained that her arm was hurting, asking a prison official whether it was supposed to feel that way.

7.46pm: Officials closed the curtain to the execution chamber before reopening it three minutes later, with Pike still alive.

7.56pm: Pike appeared to lose consciousness and began making sounds resembling snoring, but continued breathing and briefly lifted her head.

8.06pm: Officials closed the curtain again, but witnesses continued to hear Pike breathing from behind it.

8.22pm: Pike’s attorney Randy Spivey said he demanded that the execution be halted and that she receive life-saving medical care.

8.50pm: Spivey said he received confirmation that an ambulance was on its way to the prison.

8.53pm: Witnesses were ordered to leave the execution area and members of the media were escorted out.

9.14pm: Ambulances and fire trucks arrived outside the prison. Pike was later taken to hospital after surviving two doses of pentobarbital.

Christa Pike was critically ill and receiving “life-saving medical care” in a Nashville hospital on Thursday hours after she survived two attempts by Tennessee to ​execute her with lethal injections, her lawyers said

“Christa is alive right now,” Randall Spivey, one of Pike’s lawyers who was a witness at the execution attempt, told reporters on Thursday afternoon.

“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health ​at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now.”

Her lawyers repeated their calls for Pike’s sentence to be commuted to life in prison after enduring what ​they called “chemical torture.”

Tennessee has suspended all executions for the rest of the year while it investigates the incident.

Tadaryl Shipp remains in prison for his role in the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the crime, is serving a life sentence at the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, Tennessee. Because he was a juvenile when the murder occurred, he was legally ineligible for the death penalty.

The Tennessee Board of Parole denied Shipp parole in October 2025 due to the severity of the offense. Having been incarcerated since January 1995, his next parole review is scheduled for October 2031.

Yes, but it is extremely rare. Only a handful of death row inmates in U.S. history have survived an attempted execution, typically when corrections teams called off the procedure after failing to secure a usable vein for lethal injection.

Tennessee relies on a single-drug protocol using pentobarbital, a potent barbiturate designed to depress the central nervous system. Delivered intravenously, a high dose is intended to quickly induce unconsciousness, halt breathing and stop the heart.

The method depends entirely on flawless IV access and proper drug potency. Without a correct dose flowing directly into the bloodstream, the sedative can fail to stop breathing, leaving an inmate conscious or in prolonged distress.