The first woman they had to execute in Tennessee in 200 years survives two lethal injections

BarcelonaChrista Pike, a prisoner on death row in Tennessee for a crime she committed in 1995, has survived the two lethal injections administered to execute her and has been transferred to a maximum-security facility in Riverbend, Nashville. "The Tennessee Department of Correction has followed all the steps of the legal execution protocol established by the state," Tennessee authorities noted in a statement following the failed attempt. Pike's execution was the first scheduled for a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

"The chemical lethal injection of the protocol has been consistently effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out tonight. Christa Pike has been transferred to a medical facility off-site," they explained. As a consequence of the failed attempt to execute Pike, Tennessee has suspended executions for the time being.

Christa Pike was sentenced to death in 1996, when she was 18 years old, for the murder of Colleen Slemmer, 19, a fellow student at a vocational school in Knoxville. As stated in the trial, Pike and two other youths, including her partner at the time, Tadaryl Shipp, killed Slemmer.