Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) said the state must investigate the failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike and consider changes to its execution procedures after Pike survived two doses of lethal injection drugs Wednesday night.
“Justice wasn’t carried out last night due to an error,” Sexton said in a statement Thursday. “In the coming months, I will work with my Senate counterparts to investigate this failure and past failures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Some will rush to the defense of Christa Pike, but the only ones who matter in this case are Colleen and the Slemmer family. For thirty years the family of Colleen Slemmer has waited for the execution of their daughter’s killer, Christa Pike. Colleen was lured, beaten, tortured,…
— Speaker Cameron Sexton (@CSexton25) October 1, 2026
Pike was scheduled to be executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom Pike killed when she was 18. Pike was administered two doses of pentobarbital but remained alive and was later transported by ambulance to an off-site medical facility.
Sexton focused his statement on Slemmer’s family, saying they have waited approximately 30 years for Pike’s execution.
“Some will rush to the defense of Christa Pike, but the only ones who matter in this case are Colleen and the Slemmer family,” Sexton said.
He described Slemmer’s killing as a “premeditated act of violence” that “deserved and received the death penalty,” recounting that she was lured, beaten, tortured, slashed, carved on, and ultimately had her skull crushed.
“While a few will argue the death penalty isn’t humane – was Colleen’s murder humane?” Sexton said.
Sexton said lawmakers will examine “all options” following the failed execution, including expanding alternatives to lethal injection and changing the state’s current medications “to include potassium chloride.”
Gubernatorial Republican nominee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) also called for a change in Tennessee’s execution methods, saying Thursday that if elected governor in November, she would “bring back the electric chair” and “deliver justice for these victims swiftly.”
Pike’s execution attempt came after a day of legal challenges. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals initially issued a stay concerning claims related to abuse Pike experienced as a child, but the U.S. Supreme Court later vacated the stay, allowing Tennessee to proceed.
As a result of what happened to Pike, Governor Bill Lee halted all remaining executions scheduled for 2026 and ordered a third-party review of what occurred.
Pike’s failed execution was Tennessee’s second unsuccessful lethal-injection attempt this year. In May, the state halted the execution of Tony Carruthers after officials were unable to establish intravenous access.
As of Friday, Pike remained hospitalized in critical condition, according to her attorneys. They said she was unconscious, intubated, and breathing through a ventilator and had suffered “significant injuries to both arms” during the two failed injections.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Cameron Sexton” by Cameron Sexton.
