Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, announced the resignation of the head of the state Department of Correction, Frank Strada, after the failed execution of 50-year-old Christa Pike. The woman survived after two injections of pentobarbital, and the state has launched an independent investigation into the cause of the failure.
Reuters reported that Lee announced Strada’s resignation amid the proceedings over Pike’s failed execution. The governor also ordered a halt to all executions in Tennessee until at least the end of the year and called what happened a “deeply shocking” mistake.
Pike was to be executed on Wednesday, September 30. During the procedure, she was given two doses of pentobarbital — a drug that can be fatal in large doses and is used in the United States for euthanasia. After the injections, Pike remained alive; she was taken from prison by ambulance to a hospital in extremely critical condition.
The Guardian quotes Strada as saying that it was a great honor for him to lead Tennessee’s prison system. He said the department acted in accordance with the established protocol and added that he is stepping aside so as not to interfere with the independent review. Citing human rights advocates, the publication writes that before working in Tennessee, Strada led Arizona’s correctional system and that his record already included five failed executions.
According to The Guardian, Tennessee has already recorded two failed executions since the beginning of the year. In May 2026, authorities spent an entire hour trying to find a vein in Tony Carruthers for the lethal injection.
Pike was supposed to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in the last 200 years. In 1995, when she was 18, she and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured, and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer; in 1996, both were found guilty. Because Shipp was a minor, he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, while Pike’s defense spent years seeking a review of the sentence, pointing out that she had suffered sexual abuse in childhood, which the jury did not know about.
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