Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Christa Pike Botched Execution: New Secrets Exposed!

Episode Date: October 26, 2026

One of murderer Christa Pike's lawyers has filed a declaration outlining a minute-by-minute accounting of her botched execution from his perspective. Randy Spivey filed the document as an exhibit in the case where Pike is challenging lethal injection as the method of execution to carry out her death sentence for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. The declaration includes details about what Spivey said Pike ate and drank that day, the attempts to find a vein and the appearance of a white rock during the procedure. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy combs through the details in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Consult an expert today to discuss how Odoo can help scale your business and get a free 14-day trial at https://odoo.com/crimefix.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Mark Weaver https://x.com/MarkRWeaverCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Alex Ciccarone & Jay CruzGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

They don't have a code and it's for the woman that's supposed to be executed. Laughing, choking, power aid, and a mysterious white rock. Those are some of the new details. Krista Pike's lawyer is revealing about her botched execution. But will it be enough to stop a second attempt to carry out her death sentence? I'm digging into it. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and this is crime fix. It's been nearly a month since the state of Tennessee attempted to carry out Krista

Pike's death sentence and failed. Since that time, Krista Pike has spent time in the hospital recovering, and her lawyers believed she wouldn't make it. But then she woke up. Pike could speak. She could walk. And now there are reports that she is speaking in complete sentences inside the women's prison where she has been serving time for more than 30 years. And now we are learning new details about what happened in the hours leading up to Krista Pike's botched execution. One of her lawyers, Randy Spivey, has laid out an hour by hour, even a minute by minute, timeline of what he says he witnessed that day. It's included in a declaration filed as an exhibit in Pike's court case. Since the execution failed, Pike's lawyers have gone back to court,

and her case challenging lethal injection as a method of execution has been reopened in Chancery Court. Pike had gone to court early in 2026, claiming she shouldn't be put to death by lethal injection because she has bad veins. She suggested hanging instead, but that's not an option under Tennessee's statute. The electric chair is, though, if the condemned prisoner signs a waiver, agreeing to the use of the chair. But Pike didn't offer the electric chair as another option, so the execution moved forward with lethal injection. Pike was scheduled to die on September 30th for the heinous and horrific murder. of Colleen Slemer. Slemer was a fellow classmate of Pikes in Knoxville in 1995. They were both in the

Job Corps program, and Pike and her then boyfriend to Daryl Schip, lured Colleen Slemer away from campus with the help of another student. They tortured her. They beat her, crushed her skull, and even carved a pentagram into her chest. They subjected her to cruel, cruel torture. Colleen was unrecognizable. Pike's legal team tried to stop her execution. They argued she had health issues that made accessing her veins difficult. They lost that fight. So she was scheduled to die on September 30th for the unforgivable murder of Colleen Slemer. Randy Spivey, one of Krista Pike's lawyers, laid out that minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour account of what happened that day. Spivey says he arrived at the River Bend prison that day at 6 a.m. and was escorted to the Death Watch area,

where he met with Krista Pike for two hours. At 8.15 or 8.30 that morning, Spivey said he was escorted from that area so the execution team could prepare a short time after that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of execution. Now it's not uncommon and the hours leading up to an execution for a series of last-ditch efforts to be made to stop an execution. Typically, those efforts fail. Spivey wrote in his declaration, for the next nine to ten hours we waited in the Death Watch area. During this time, I saw Krista drink a power aid, a Mountain Dew, and a Pepsi. She also ate a lunch of potato wedges, pinwheel sandwiches, and a cookie that Warden Nelson brought to her. Around 12 or 1 p.m., Krista returned to her cell in order to rest. Her spiritual

advisor and I waited in the death watch area of visitation room. Around 4 p.m., Spivey said that Krista Pike asked that he and the spiritual advisor sit outside of her cell, which they did. Two hours later, at 6 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the stay of execution granted by the Sixth Circuit. So the execution was supposed to move forward. Spivey wrote, At 6.21 p.m. I stood in the back of the Death Watch area as a squad of T-Doc officers lined up to extract Krista. Krista's hands were restrained through the cell door. She was then told to get on her knees and her bunk and place her head against the wall. Krista complied quietly. Krista was then removed from the cell and lifted onto the gurney. She was strapped down, starting with the restraints on her upper body.

at six twenty seven p m once christa's upper body was secured to the gurney the corrections officers wheeled her into the execution chamber once in the execution chamber the strapping continued at six thirty p m spivey wrote that arm extensions were attached to the gurney and christa pike's arms were secured to them Spivey wrote, during the strap-down process, Krista maintained eye contact with her spiritual advisor, Reverend Mikey Notchall. Krista was smiling, crying, and singing with Mikey about loving kindness, a Buddhist spiritual practice, and about people being gentle with themselves. The Declaration also outlines a near minute-by-minute accounting of what Spivey says happened when the execution team members tried to find a vein using an actual medical device. The declaration states at 6.33 p.m., a member of the execution team checked the restraints. Four individuals entered the execution chamber, at least three of whom appeared to be members of T-Doc's IV team. At 6.34 p.m., one of the IV team members held what appeared to be a vein finder device over Krista's right arm. Ivy team member, one, shook his head and poked Krista's arm with his finger.

He seemed to be struggling to locate a vein. At this point, one of the other IV-teamber one of the other IVs, team members whispered something to the fourth individual like, you should help, but I could not clearly hear the exchange. The warden shook his head at the fourth individual, and the fourth individual said something to the IV team member. Running a business is tough enough, but why make it harder doing things manually or relying on dozens of apps that don't talk to each other? That's where our sponsor, Odu, comes in. Odu is an all-in-one business management platform with a full suite of integrated apps that seamlessly connect all of your operations, from sales and accounting to manufacturing and even shipping. Odu can automatically generate professional, sleek-looking sales orders,

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Christa Pike, according to Spivey, tried to help the execution team find a vein, telling them to look up higher on her arm after one team member couldn't find a vein. Her attorney described her as unfailingly polite and kind. At 6.37 p.m., Spivey wrote, IV team member two took Ivy member one's place at Krista's side and began trying to place a line. Krista, meanwhile, continued to help the IV team locate a vein. When Ivy team member two began a attempting to place a line in her upper right arm, she said, thank you for listening to me. IV team member two called for a 22-gauge needle. He then began holding a wand-like device covering Krista's right arm with gel, which was connected to a tablet device.

At 6.40 p.m., IV Team member two appeared to set a line in Krista's right arm above the crook of her elbow. Krista asked, did you get it? And IV Team member two responded, yes. Krista replied, I love you. Spivey wrote that at 6.46 p.m. that IV team member three seemed to be unable to find a vein. That's when team member two came over with a tablet and asked for that 22-gauge blue needle. At 6.49 p.m. IV member two asked for another needle a 20 or 22 gauge. Krista was wincing and grimacing as IV team member two moved the needle around in Krista's arm.

At this point, IV Team Member 2 said something like, not enough capillary. At 6.50 p.m., IV Team Member 2 was still using the wand and tablet device and shaking his head. He asked for another blue needle. By 653 p.m., IV Team Member 2 had been moving the needle for a long time, but seemed unsure if he got it in. He expressed that he thought that the vein might be blown. A minute later, a team member said the needle wasn't long enough and asked, what's the long you've got, referring to the needles. Two minutes later, it appeared the needle had been inserted correctly, but a minute later, there was a concern that the line, quote, might be blowing.

Spivey said the team then pulled up Pike's left sleeve and said that she had one right there, and Pike responded, that's what I've been trying to tell you. Another needle was inserted into Pike's upper left arm. The declaration from Spivey then recounts Krista Pike's last words. At 7.27 p.m., the warden asked Krista for a last statement. It was hard to hear, but Krista seemed to say, I just want to say, I'm leaving this world the way I have spent most of my life, which is in love, in love with the people who are supporting me, but also with those who hate me. I encourage them to look into the things that brought me out of deep despair and pain. I'm at peace and ready to go. Minutes later, Krista Pike began to describe pain in her arm,

following injections of pentobarbital and saline. The declaration states, at 7.34 p.m., Krista said, I feel like my arm is about to bust. It burns. She said that the one spot on her arm is really burning. She said that it hurt. At 7.36 p.m., Krista was still talking to Mikey and smiling reassuringly at him.

She was breathing deeply. At 7.38 p.m., Krista looked at the IV sights again. Krista sang, moved her feet a bit, and laughed at something Mikey said. She then lifted her head and seemed confused as to why the process was taking so long. At 7.40 p.m., Krista was still singing with Mikey. The singing and laughing with Mikey continued, and at one point Randy Spivey said a white rock was placed in the port between the execution chamber and the lethal injection room. At 7.43 p.m., Krista yawned, but was still talking to

Mikey, laughing and smiling. At 7.44 p.m., Krista's breathing was obviously late. at 7.45 p.m., Krista yawned again. At 7.46 p.m., Krista began making an agitated snoring sound. T.Doc closed the curtain, and my view of Krista was cut off, but I could still hear her snoring. At 7.50 p.m., Mikey was escorted into the official witness room. Shortly thereafter, he was asked to return to the execution chamber. I could still hear Krista snoring and struggling to breathe. The curtain reopened, and I saw that the white rock had been taken. taken away. Randy Spivey said he heard Krista Pike making choking and snoring noises for more than 20 minutes. At 8.50 p.m. he said that he was told that an ambulance was on the way after many, many

911 calls were made. So to really dig into this declaration by Randy Spivey, I want to bring in somebody from the pro-death penalty side of the spectrum here. He is Mark Weaver. He is a prosecutor-based in Ohio and has prosecuted death penalty cases. Mark, thank you so much for coming on. Yes, an important topic. Yeah, a very important topic. You know, I hate to think of anybody being poked and prodded and, you know, reading through this declaration, we read about how Krista Pike was trying to find a vein or help these people on the execution team find a vein. We knew about her arm burning and things like that, but now we're hearing the nitty-gritty details, according to her lawyer about how they used the vein finder and we're trying to find a vein and everything went

haywire as we can see. What is your reaction to this minute by minute accounting by Randy Spivey of what he witnessed in the execution chamber? All of us who've been in a classroom know how hard it is to take detailed notes and pay attention to what's happening in front of our eyes. and so this lawyer was either not paying careful attention with his eyes because he was writing too many notes or he was missing some things. I'm not suggesting any of it's false. I was just surprised at the level of detail. He couldn't have been recording it because he said he didn't have his phone with him. So somehow another, he may have missed something.

Having said that, the larger picture here is it's a well-known practice on death row. The inmates who are approaching lethal injection will do things. I'm not quite sure what, but certainly there are things you can do. do to make your arms and your veins a little less likely to accept a needle. And that increases the likelihood of what happened here, which is some form of botched lethal injection process, which at the very least will buy that killer more time. Wait, wait, wait.

I want to go back for a second. You said it's a well-known practice on death row that inmates will take actions to make their veins less. accessible? Yeah. This is something we've talked about at prosecutor's conferences. I don't think it's well known out there, but it's certainly in their interests. I've never had a class on exactly how

they do it, but I've had death penalty CLEs where this has been brought up. It's certainly in their interest to do that. Now, whether it's illegal intervenous drug use, which does happen in prison, sadly, or other sort of homemade methods to make your veins less accessible. Some people are naturally have

veins that are less accessible. That's not controlled by the person. But there are things that can be done to make it harder to find them with respect to scar tissue and musculature. It's certainly in the interests of death row inmates to find a way to maybe this one small chance push away the execution date. That's wild. Because she had brought up many times in the past to the courts that she had medical issues where her veins, it was hard to access them. It was hard to find them. So she had made this known in prior court documents. This whole thing is an argument for if we're going to maintain the death penalty as a matter of public policy, which I think we should, and the states have done away with it, have made a very poor policy choice and endangered their residents.

But if we're going to have death penalty, it ought to be a swift shore and relatively painless method and that all points towards a firing squad which doesn't go wrong and is very quick and although I've never been shot and no one has been shot in the heart several times and live to talk about it it's likely a rather quick and painless process and we won't have these issues of companies that won't supply the medication difficulty in medical expertise trying to make this thing happen other states are doing it. It's been held constitutional. If we're going to maintain the death penalty, states ought to probably pivot into a firing squad. And some states have done that. We know that South Carolina has the firing squad.

Idaho is erecting a firing squad. They're building one. One thing I do want to talk about is the fact that there was all this kind of internet chatter that Krista Pike did something, dehydrated herself so that she it would make it harder to find her veins. Her attorney said in the nine to ten hours that he was with her that day. He watched her drink a couple of sodas. We know that caffeine can dehydrate you, but he said that she also had a power aid. So those are three drinks that she would have had that day

and that she also ate some sandwiches and some potato wedges. So I feel like that kind of counters maybe this whole claim that she was dehydrating herself. Yeah, I don't know what she did, although it's interesting that the lawyer thought it was important to name the brands. The two brands you mentioned, I think it was a Pepsi and a Mountain Dew are some of the highest caffeine things we have,

which is dehydrating. It goes to my earlier point, which is, I don't know all the different countermeasures that can be taken, whether it's dehydration, interview drug use, other things you can manipulate with your body. It's certainly an attempt that some make, whether she made it or not, I don't know. Maybe she's naturally hard to find the veins for.

It seems like we can bypass the entire game, the cat and mouse game, about how to delay a lethal injection, either by lawsuits, by drug companies, or by inmates trying to make themselves or lean into the fact that they have difficult veins, by moving toward a more sure method. Certainly the guillotine and hanging are sure,

but I understand why politicians wouldn't want to do those things. they do seem to be rather grotesque and morbid, if you will, even though all of these things involve death. Seems to me that right in the middle appears to be the firing squad, which is why I continue to mention it. In Tennessee, if you don't do the lethal injection, the alternative method, according to the statute, is the electric chair, and you have to sign a waiver for that. Krista Pike had suggested apparently hanging, but that's not a legal method of execution.

in the state of Tennessee. Marsha Blackburn, the U.S. senator, one of the U.S. senators in Tennessee, who, you know, is running for governor and will likely be the next governor of Tennessee, has advocated bringing back

the electric chair and has said she wants to do that to carry out this execution of Krista Pike. Yeah. I certainly have worked on a lot of death penalty litigation. As you mentioned, I've tried death penalty cases, and I have at least one inmate currently on death row and working on another death penalty case as we speak.

But I'm not an expert in the actual techniques. And so if experts look at the electric chair and say that it can be painless, relatively painless and quick and efficient and get what the jury ordered to be done, done, I don't have a quarrel specifically with that. Same with hanging. My strength of my argument is less on the method, although I have recommended. the firing squad, then the fact that we ought to do it

because it's inarguable that that person will never commit another murder behind bars or out in the free world, which means it's 100% specific deterrent against that killer killing again. And then there's different studies and different arguments about whether, in general, the death penalty deters other killings.

You know, The whole thing about this is that it seemed like it went on for a really long time. They had this death warrant, and so they were tasked with carrying out this execution. But it did seem as if they were having a lot of trouble finding a vein. I mean, we go through this minute-by-minute accounting, and they used the vein finder, the actual tool that they use in hospitals that's supposed to kind of light up your veins. And according to Spivey, they had trouble finding it with that. you know they try to insert lines in several locations including her upper arm a few times they say

i think it's a blown you know it does it did seem to kind of go on for a while that they they were having all these issues finding the vein um did that seem unusual to you mark i mean i know you said you're not an expert in like the methods of carrying out executions but it does seem like it took a long time and i'm assuming these are medically trained individuals. You're not just going to send some Tom Dick or Harry in there to carry out an execution, but their identities are secret because that's the law in Tennessee. Sure. Well, the challenge that the lethal injection process brings is that we are incorporating people who've joined a profession to save lives, nurses, EMTs, phlebotomists,

Doctors typically won't be involved in the actual finding the vein. They'll often call in to check the heartbeat to see if the person has died. But these are people who chose a career that was focused on saving life. So there is this irony that they're being asked to participate, even if they're volunteers, in a process that ends the life. And it's one of the complications of using lethal injection. It's a bit of a legal fiction or a little bit of a legal fantasy that politicians engaged in 40 years ago when they dreamt

up lethal injection. It was as if politician said, how can we keep the death penalty and not feel so bad about the methodology? And you imagine somebody's sort of drifting off to sleep. And then since then, the process has been studied and they've added different drugs and different techniques, not all of which, as we now know, work depending on the person. And it's become a problem in itself and it's worth policymakers addressing it. Krista Pike's attorneys have sought to reopen her case challenging lethal injection as the method of execution, and that request was granted. This declaration by Randy Spivey was included as an exhibit for that filing. The state of Tennessee is going to respond with their own filing, I would assume, talking about why this execution should move forward in the future.

However, there is a third-party review taking place. So what do you anticipate from the state of Tennessee? I mean, do you think they're going to actually just say, okay, yeah, you're right? We shouldn't carry out this execution. Everything that we've been getting, all the signals so far that we've been getting are that, no, they're going to try this again, especially if a governor, Marsha Blackburn, gets into office. Let's look at the motivation from the two respective sides. On the one hand, you mentioned the state, so let's talk about that.

That's where I've done my work as a prosecutor. They are bound by law to follow the law. And the law of Tennessee is the death penalty. A jury and a judge ordered the death penalty. That must be followed absent a gubernatorial intervention by way of a reprieve of some sort or pardon or commutation. So the prosecutors are motivated by the law that requires them to carry out this punishment. The defense lawyers are motivated by finding any means, hopefully legal, any means to stop their client for being executed. Sometimes those means are not ethical and legal.

Years ago when I was the deputy attorney general of Ohio, I was involved with a death penalty case, and a killer's lawyer filed a spurious fake motion with a federal court claiming that I had magically appeared on death row after midnight with my secretary and secretly. and secretly offered the killer coffee to waive his appeals. Now, of course, that never happened. Because if you've ever been to death row and I have, there's multiple cameras and ways you have to sign in and they don't allow people in at night. And of course, I was never there in that capacity.

Yet this lawyer was willing to file this as a way of trying to stop the execution. Luckily, the judge dismissed it and found that it was frivolous. But it's an example of how too many death penalty defense lawyers will take any step imaginable to stop that execution, including playing up what appears to be some mistake made and forcing that to push the governor's hand to perhaps get a reprieve. I want to hear from the medical professionals. We haven't heard from them just yet. But, you know, according to Krista Pike's team, she was going to die. They were going to take her off life support and she was going to die. That is the word that they had, you know,

know, after this execution, and then poof, she wakes up and she's able to talk. She's asking, you know, she's asked what date it is. She says it's September. Well, it was October because she had been asleep. She then was released back to the prison. So they felt she was well enough to send her back to the prison days later. And now she's speaking in full sentences. So it appears that something went wrong. The drugs were injected into her system, the pentobarbital. It probably went into her, you know, flesh rather than her vein or else she would have died. And so it appears she is better. Like she's recovering or recovered. We don't know that yet. Do you anticipate a filing from the state of Tennessee outlining her medical conditions since she's in the care and custody of the

state at the prison? Because elected officials are part of the process, in this case it's the governor, it's inherently a political process. Imagine a different punishment that a judge in a jury order defound some felon guilty of something, and the judge sentenced that person to a maximum security prison, and then imagine the van taking the person there hits a flooded area and cannot get that prisoner to the maximum security prison and instead has to detour to a minimum security prison. We would expect that as soon as the conditions that stopped that sentence from being carried out went away, that the state would promptly pick up the prisoner, get through the now dried up area, and put that person in the prison they're supposed to be going to.

We ought to expect the same thing for the death penalty. If there was some impediment, some issue, once that's resolved, a new death warrant should be issued and the execution should be carried out. There's some interesting things in this declaration. At one point, Randy Spivey said something to the effect of, you know, he saw people like putting the needles in the bucket, but he didn't hear the clink at the bottom of the bucket. What is your interpretation of what he's trying to say there? That seems a little odd. We live in a world where the Internet is a haven for people who love conspiracy theories, and you can find nearly every conspiracy theory out there. maybe one of the most venerable is that we didn't actually land on the moon.

And so lawyers like this probably recognize that there are room out, there's room out there for a conspiracy theory. So by adding little details that suggest something is not on the up and up, it might lend to speculation, which could lead to more media coverage, which could lead to pressure on a governor, to perhaps issue a reprieve, a commutation or a pardon. So you expect another death warrant when it's all said and done, another death warrant to be issued and for this execution to move forward a second time?

It should. Again, when I was Deputy Attorney General serving under Ohio's best Attorney General, Betty Montgomery, when we realized that there was an inmate who had allowed his appeals to stop and didn't bring any new ones thinking that we wouldn't ask for an execution warrant, we immediately appealed for an execution warrant and forced his hand. When the law says a killer is supposed to be put to death and a judge and a jury and dozens of appeals judges have signed off on it, there ought to be a death warrant, it ought to be carried out.

Well, we will see what happens. And we'll see if Governor Bill Lee on his way out the door in January commutes her sentence. He refused to do it before. So we'll see if he does it now. I'm thinking probably not, but we'll see. Mark Weaver, thank you so much. Yes, thank you. So right now, Krista Pike is due back in court in November. Her attorneys are trying to stop the state from attempting to execute her for a second time. Pike is at that women's prison in Tennessee where she is continuing to recover. And when and if

the state responds to the paperwork filed by Pike's attorneys, we'll have it for you. That's it. For this episode of Crime Fix, I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back for next time.