Christa Pike's legal team asks court to preserve evidence after failed execution attempt

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — Christa Pike’s attorneys are asking a Davidson County Chancery Court judge to order Tennessee officials to preserve evidence from the state’s Sept. 30 execution attempt that was not completed.

The emergency motion, filed Friday, Oct. 2, asks the court to protect physical, written, and electronic evidence related to the attempted lethal injection while Pike’s broader legal challenge continues.

The filing does not ask the court to decide whether Tennessee violated Pike’s constitutional rights during the procedure. Instead, it argues the state has a duty to preserve potential evidence before it can be altered, tested, discarded, or lost.

Pike’s attorneys allege the execution team struggled to establish IV access and failed to recognize that IV lines had been improperly placed or damaged. The motion says Pike was given two sets of pentobarbital syringes and alleges the medication may have leaked into surrounding tissue rather than being delivered as intended. Those claims have not been verified yet.

The filing also says Pike remained critically ill at a Nashville-area hospital as of Thursday night, on a ventilator and unconscious.

Her lawyers claim that her arms were swollen, burned, and blistered when she arrived at the hospital.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said after the execution attempt that it followed every step of the state’s “lawful, established execution protocol,” that the lethal injection chemical had “consistently been effective,” and that the protocol did not permit additional procedures beyond those carried out. TDOC said Pike was transported to an off-site medical facility.

Pike, 50, is on death row for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. A federal appeals court temporarily paused her execution the morning of Sept. 30, but the U.S. Supreme Court later lifted that stay. Witnesses said the state was unable to complete the execution that night.

In Oct. 2’s filing, Pike’s attorneys say they alerted state attorneys to their preservation request shortly after the attempt and again the following afternoon. They say they had not received a response by the time the motion was filed.

The attorneys are asking the court to ensure that evidence connected to the procedure is kept intact as litigation continues. The court could grant the request, deny it, or issue a narrower preservation order.

Source: The Associated Press, Ashley Griffin, October 2, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
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