Prisons chief resigns after failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee

Tennessee's prisons chief has resigned after the failed execution of death row prisoner Christa Pike.

Frank Strada, commissioner of Tennessee's Department of Correction, will step down this month, while an independent review determines what happened on Wednesday, state governor Bill Lee said on Saturday.

Pike, 50, was given two doses of pentobarbital, a lethal drug used by Tennessee in state executions.

She was later taken to hospital, where she is on a ventilator and unconscious, her attorneys said.

In a statement, Mr Strada said that resigning was "in the best interest of Tennesseans" while an independent review - ordered by the governor - determines what happened when the state failed to execute Pike.

"I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred," he added.

Resignation does 'nothing' for Pike: Attorneys

Pike's legal team welcomed Strada's departure but said "it does nothing to help Christa now", adding: "What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person.

"We hope the governor's call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee's entire death penalty system."

Attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into Pike's body instead of her bloodstream.

Mr Strada took over the department in January 2023 after serving as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Correction.

In late 2024, he announced that Tennessee was changing its lethal injection protocol and would use only pentobarbital.

Four people have been executed in Tennessee since 2025, according to the Department of Correction.

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Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted of torturing and killing Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate of theirs, at a job training facility in the city of Knoxville in 1995.

Prosecutors said Pike, who was 18 at the time, feared she was trying to steal her boyfriend, and lured her to a wooded area.

A pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satanism, was carved on the victim's body, which, along with other elements of the crime, stoked fears of Satan worship during the so-called "satanic panic" in the country during the 1980s and 1990s.

Shipp, who was 17 when the crime was committed, received a life sentence with the possibility of ​parole.

Pike does not deny the killing, but her supporters have argued the state should consider her age at the time, mental illness and a history of severe sexual abuse, including rape, beginning when she was a child.

Second failed execution this year

Pike's failed execution was the second such incident in Tennessee this year: In May, the execution of Tony Carruthers, convicted of killing three people in 1994, was called off after officials could not find a suitable vein for his lethal injection.

Last October, the lawyer of convicted child killer Byron Black claimed that he showed signs of "sustained cardiac activity" two minutes after he was pronounced dead following his execution in the state.

Concerns had been raised that Black was being put to death with a working defibrillator implanted in his chest.

(c) Sky News 2026: Prisons chief resigns after failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee