Christa Pike's botched execution: Tennessee prison chief Frank Strada resigns, says ‘I continue to believe that...’

Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday that the head of Tennessee's prison system is resigning over the botched execution of murder accused Christa Pike.

This comes as the first major staff shake-up since Pike's stunning failed execution left her unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital.

Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.

After a dramatic day of legal wrangling, prison officials in Tennessee on Wednesday injected two deadly doses of the highly toxic drug pentobarbital into Pike for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.

But witnesses said that the 50-year-old Pike remained awake longer than expected and was later heard "loudly snoring" before an ambulance rushed her to a nearby hospital.

Pike's lawyers say she is in critical condition, unconscious and on a ventilator in a hospital, after her execution by lethal injection went wrong on Wednesday, news agency AFP reported.

It was the second failed execution in Tennessee this year. The state halted an execution in May after medical staff failed to tap a vein in the prisoner's arm.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has halted attempts to carry out the death penalty for the rest of 2026.

Who is Frank Strada?

Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down this month, Lee said. The governor said he thanked Strada for "his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment."

Meanwhile, Strada reportedly said, "I continue to believe the Department [of Correction] carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol."

Strada said in a statement that resigning was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while former US Attorney Ed Stanton's review is conducted. The state failed to execute Pike despite administering two doses of a lethal drug, pentobarbital.

The governor announced that Stanton would lead a review of what happened in Pike's death chamber.

Stanton previously was named to conduct a review after Lee called off a different execution in 2022; he found in that case that Tennessee had not complied with its own lethal injection process.

An interim commissioner will be announced later, the governor's office said.

"Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment,” Lee said in a statement.

Strada defends execution protocol

There was no immediate response from Pike's lawyers for an update Saturday on her condition at a hospital. They had disclosed Friday that she was on a ventilator and unconscious in the hours following the execution attempt and that hospital staff were trying to clear the two doses of pentobarbital.

The shocking failure has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Lee has ordered an independent review and halted any new executions. Strada said he believes the state “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”

Pike's legal team welcomed Strada's departure but said “it does nothing to help Christa now.”

“What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,” the four-lawyer team said. “We hope the governor’s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”

Second failed execution since May

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

Pike was extraordinarily cooperative with the execution team, even instructing them to “please try here, please try here” as they tried to insert lines, lawyer Randy Spivey told reporters Thursday.

In May, Tennessee stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff placed an IV into his right arm but couldn’t get a secondary IV line. The governor ordered officials to wait at least a year before trying to execute him again.

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

Some Arizona executions had snags

Court filings show that Strada's job included overseeing executions in Arizona when they resumed in 2022 following an eight-year break.

Clarence Dixon was the first that year. The medical team had trouble finding a vein to administer the lethal drugs and finally made an incision in his groin area. The process took about 25 minutes.

That same year in Arizona, medical staff preparing Frank Atwood for execution initially could not locate a vein in his right arm but inserted the IV in his right hand — at Atwood’s suggestion, said Henry Brean, an Arizona Daily Star reporter who was a witness.

Strada announced Murray Hooper's execution by lethal injection, the third in 2022. There was an unsuccessful attempt to insert an IV line in his right arm. The IV in Hooper's leg was inserted into his femoral artery.

“When Governor Lee hired Strada to fix execution problems in Tennessee, his problematic history of executions in Arizona was well known,” said Kit Thomas, an attorney who has represented people on Tennessee's death row.

Had the drugs killed Pike, she would have been the first woman executed by the state in more than two centuries.

In the United States, only 18 women have been executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.