Tennessee Pauses All Executions After Failed Attempt On Christa Pike

A Tennessee execution has been paused after officials failed to carry out the death sentence for Christa Pike, who played a role in the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. The botched attempt left Pike hospitalized in critical condition following two doses of lethal injection drugs that did not work. Gov. Bill Lee immediately halted all death penalties in the state for the remainder of the year, leaving only one scheduled event: the Dec. 3 execution of Gary Wayne Sutton.

Sutton is a convicted double murderer who bailed out his uncle and co-defendant, James Dellinger, just before Dellinger was shot dead. Later, Sutton killed his own sister when she went looking for him. The case has drawn sharp criticism from lawyers and experts who argue the evidence is circumstantial. They urge the governor to commute Pike's sentence after this latest failure on death row.

Sutton maintains he is innocent, yet separate trials resulted in convictions for the killings of Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam. Both victims were a brother and sister killed on Feb. 21 and 22, 1992, in Knoxville. Court records reviewed by Fox News Digital show Sutton had beaten up Griffin's brother earlier that month before going drinking with Dellinger and Griffin at Howie's Hideaway.

After the group left the bar, a fight broke out. Sutton and Dellinger abandoned Griffin on the roadside. He flagged down a police officer who found the young man shirtless, weeping, and covered in scrapes and scratches behind his ear. Griffin told investigators he had argued with friends who were not really friends but refused to give specifics before being arrested for public intoxication.

Around 8:30 p.m., Sutton and Dellinger appeared at the station to bail Griffin out and were told to return later. They came back around 11:30 p.m. with a flannel shirt. Thirty minutes after that, witnesses heard three gunshots near where Griffin's body was eventually found. He had suffered a shotgun blast to the head.

The next day, Branam went to Howie's Hideaway looking for her brother, accompanied by Sutton and Dellinger. She told the server she needed to find him before vanishing into flames in her scorched car. A forensic pathologist could not determine if she was alive when the fire started because her body was so badly burned. Detectives recovered a .303 cartridge that matched a rifle found at Dellinger's home.

It remains unclear who shot Griffin or exactly how Branam died. This uncertainty fuels ongoing debate about capital punishment in Tennessee. The state has now seen two botched executions this year after executioners could not find a suitable vein for Tony Carruthers back in May. Lee stated Carruthers would not face execution again for at least a year after his scheduled death was canceled.

Pike is the first person documented to have survived the administration of lethal injection drugs, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. That nonprofit tracks capital punishment across the United States and noted that Clayton Lockett, an Oklahoma inmate in 2014, initially survived an injection but died of a heart attack while still inside the chamber. While what comes next for Pike remains uncertain as she recovers in an undisclosed hospital, the controversy over these failed attempts continues to cast a long shadow over state justice systems.