Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Sadistic Teen Murderer's Execution BOTCHED – Everything We Know

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Christa Pike, 50, was scheduled to die by lethal injection in Tennessee on Tuesday, September 30, 2026, for the brutal 1995 of Colleen Slemmer, 19. But Pike did not die after being injected with two typically lethal doses of pentobarbital. Now questions are surfacing about what went wrong and how this could have happened after Pike's legal team raised concerns about her veins and other potential issues. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the many question in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests: Bethany PridgenFanon Rucker https://www.instagram.com/fanonrucker/CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Van DinhGuest 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.

She said that there was a spot that was burning and hurting and asked if that was normal. None of it was normal. There will certainly be a very careful, critical review of every stage of this process. There will be a critical review of who handled the phenobarbital barbital and who mixed the compounds. A murderer's execution stopped, botched. After a dose of drugs doesn't do the job, and Krista Pike is rushed to the hospital. Last night was not just inefficient. It was cruel and it was torturous. I have the latest details. I'm Ann Janette Levy, and this is crime fix.

Krista Pike's execution did not go as planned, and that's putting it mildly, politely. The lethal injection, it didn't work. How could this have happened? Forensic chemist, Bethany Pridgin, is going to join me, to discuss this. Did the drugs simply not work? Did someone inject Pike incorrectly? Did the Pento Barbital not take effect? If you haven't heard of Krista Pike, let me give you a little bit of background. Pike is a 50-year-old woman, an inmate in Tennessee who was sentenced to die for the horrific 1995 murder of a classmate. That classmate was Colleen Slemmer. Slemer was a student at Job Corps in Knoxville, Tennessee. On January 12, 1995, Pike and two classmates lured Slemer into a wooded

area on the University of Tennessee campus. The three tortured Colleen Slemer. Her death was long and cruel. Slemer was beaten. A pentagram was cut into her chest, and Krista Pike actually took a piece of Slemer's skull as a souvenir. To Daryl's ship was 17 at the time in Pike's boyfriend, a woman named Shandala Peterson was also involved. Pike and Ship confessed to the brutal crime in Peterson, cooperated with prosecutors, and got probation. Now the motive? Pike believed that Colleen Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend to Darrell Ship. Krista Pike was found guilty in 1996 and sentenced to die by electrocution

while Ship got life with the possibility of parole after serving 30 years. On the evening of Wednesday, September 30th, after exhausting all of the her appeals. The execution was set for Krista Pike. Pike was going to die by lethal injection. Prison officials said Pike was offered a last meal, but she refused it. And then the execution did not go as planned. Here are some of the reporters who witnessed what happened behind prison walls. One talked about Krista Pike's last words. She said, I just want to say that I'm going to leave this world the way I'm going to leave this world, the way I spent most of my life. And that is what have loved. She said she loves the people who are angry with her just as much as she loved the people

who are on her side. To leave at 853, Krista Pike was still breathing. They did two separate rounds of Dobarbital, which I've never seen before. The protocol does say that they should do a second round. If the person is still alive after the first push, she lifted her head up and was looking around at one point. She said that there was a spot that was burning and hurting and asked if that was normal. None of it was normal. I covered all the executions last year and most of the ones this year. We haven't seen anything like it. It went really poorly. The reporters who witnessed the execution seemed stunned. At 7.26 p.m., the curtains opened for members of the media who entered the room. At 7.34 p.m., a reporter said Pike stated,

my arm feels like it's about to burst open, and she smiled broadly. Twelve minutes later, at 7.46 p.m., a reporter said, the curtains closed. Members of the media repeatedly asked whether they could reopen the curtains, and prison officials looked at each other as if they didn't know. At 7.46 p.m., the reporters said it was clear that Pike was still alive because they could hear her breathing. The curtains opened again,

and reporters could still hear her breathing and at times snoring. 19 minutes later, the curtains closed and never reopened. Krista Pike was taken to a hospital sometime after that. Her attorneys released a statement. They wrote, Tonight the state of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true.

Difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency. medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy. Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed as to her condition. Tennessee governor, Bill Lee, ordered a third-party review of the failed execution, and he has also halted executions for now. This is something he's had to do in the past. Back in 2022, that pause came after Lee found out that drugs were not being mixed properly. Now Krista Pike's attorneys say she is alive. They updated the media a little earlier today about

her condition. Take a listen. I don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment. But we do know that she is alive right now in receiving life-saving medical care. The state of Tennessee has shown us again that they are not capable of carrying out an execution consistent with basic human dignity. Last night was not just inefficient. It was cruel and it was torturous. It was also predictable. Chris's legal team told the state of Tennessee and the courts that her medical conditions would cause her to suffer an agonizing death. And last night, the execution team attempted to establish an IV line for an hour.

I counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone, one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt. The state continued its efforts despite the very complications that we had warned about in court months earlier. Krista Pike was very concerned that this execution would go exactly the way it ended up coming out. She was not seeking to delay her execution. She was seeking to have that execution performed humanely and as quickly and as painlessly as possible. To that end, because we did not seek a stay of execution and we filed in the Chancery Court of Tennessee to especially protect her from her predicted problem of Venus access. Throughout her life, she's explained to us that she had trouble with blood draws.

And we knew from talking with experts that the setting of an intravenous line is much more difficult than a simple blood draw. Her blood draws were difficult. She has a blood disorder that contributes to that, and we knew this was coming. So back in January, we asked that this problem be addressed in a way that would not lead to the torture that happened. last night. Pike's legal team also says that she is able to speak and they are demanding that Governor Lee commute her sentence. I'd like to bring in Bethany Pridgin. She is a forensic chemist and Bethany, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. I want to talk about Pento Barbitol. This is a barbitur. So tell me what Pento Barbital is supposed to do.

So Pinto Barbitol is a very strong barbiturate. So it's intended typically. in the medical world to be used for severe seizure issues, pre-surgical anesthesia, sedation. It can be used in some occasions of insomnia in the short term, but it is a very strong compound that is meant to essentially sedate someone in the medical world. And then, of course, it is used in both the animal and human world as well, for euthanasia, or things like that. So pentobarbital is actually used, you said, to euthanized animals. Like, so if I go to the vet and take my dog in and needs to be euthanized,

they would use, in some cases, pentobarbital. Yes, and they often will use it in combination with another drug, and then often they'll give a sedation medication, like a more calming, not the same type of sedation, but something is a little more calming prior to giving the pentobarbital. So we have this case of Krista Pike, and the members of the media who witnessed the execution said that she was given two doses of pentobarbital, and yet apparently it did not kill her. They said that she was still snoring.

At one point, at one point early on, she was talking about her arm feeling like it was about to burst open. As a forensic chemist, and without having the limited information we have, what do you believe may have happened here that the two doses of pentobarbital that should have been lethal were not so um you know i work in chemistry and toxicology so probably with more of a toxicology you know hat on um you know it sounds like either the drug was ineffective i mean hopefully it was the actual drug that was supposed to be used i was very curious when i you know saw this story this morning as well um and i i kind of did a little like looking into what what's going on here because either the drug was not the right

dosage or maybe it was expired or old or broken down so the you know the dosage that was intended to be given may not have been so but then what i learned that i found was interesting is that this drug these drugs for use for executions are not regulated by the fda like the drugs that are given for other the rest you know for other purposes And so a lot of times these drugs are produced in compounding pharmacies that are not regulated by FDA, and they aren't necessarily required to be accredited. So we don't know that the quality of the product that was produced and where they got it from was what it should have been. So it could likely be that it was not the right dosage, so it was enough to sedate her and cause her to go into a sleep state,

like you know, especially since that support, that's supported by, you know, the observations of snoring. And then, I mean, there could be other reasons that she just didn't react to it. But my inclination is that either it wasn't the right drug or the dosage was way too low. And that could be for due to low quality production. The right amount wasn't injected. But the fact that they did it twice is very interesting to me. It makes me wonder if the right drug was given. and then what the actual, you know, dosage was of the drug in that, you know, vial.

And something that I've been wondering, just me wondering myself, did something get mixed up? I mean, was there a saline mixed up with a pentobarbital? Like, what on earth could have happened? Because I would certainly think that you would have had all of your ducks in a row when you're looking to carry out something as serious as an execution? Right. I mean, these are definitely serious mistakes with consequences that we don't want to happen. You know, the dose that's usually given for these situations is typically, you know,

five times or more the dose that would be given for a sedation situation. So, again, like you said, that's a, I mean, that is a possibility that it was far too dilute. again, not allowing the proper dosage amount to go in. And, you know, the consequence of, you know, giving, you know, these two doses and then the impact that it has on not just the individual, but all the people that were there to witness, you know, that's very grave. Yeah, it's awful, awful. And they're explaining, you know, they talk about snoring. They heard something that sounded like snoring. At one point, one of the reporters said he heard something that was, he would liken to.

you know, like a band-aid ripping off. The curtain was closed when he heard that. But, you know, there was a lot going on here where people who have witnessed executions in the past said, this wasn't a normal execution at all. We could still hear her breathing, snoring. I mean, is that just somebody who's on their way to dying? You often hear about a death rattle when people are are dying. And so is that possibly what was going on here? I mean, it's possible that that's what they were hearing or it could have been snoring. I mean, we don't really know and there's not enough information out there yet for us to know exactly what went wrong and what was her medical state, you know, once they realized that it was not, the drug was not working as intended. I mean, it could

be that she, you know, it was slowing things down enough that she was reaching. you know, a point of respiratory failure. But again, these are drugs that are intended for, you know, sedation, pre-surgery, to induce coma. And so if it was at that dosage, like a much lower dosage than it was supposed to be, then it could be creating those effects. And it's not enough to go up to the point of respiratory failure. Failure, excuse me. Is there any way to reverse the effect of pentobarbital once it's given, much like you have with opioids, something like naloxone, Narcan that can be given to reverse the effects? I'm not aware of a drug that's given in that way.

I know that, you know, anesthesiologists and specialized doctors that give this medication typically, I mean, they know how to monitor as they're giving a dose and then, you know, adjust as needed with other drugs, but, you know, like during a surgery, so if they're giving this drug and then, let's say that the heart rate and the breathing rate starts going lower than they want, then a trained anesthesiologist is going to know to adjust or include another medication to bring, you know, the vitals to where they need to be. So they're constantly balancing vitals during a surgical procedure, for example. But this is not, these aren't the type of specialists that are going to be present during this type of event. And so there will be.

wouldn't be that I am aware of a drug that's meant to reverse what's happening. So the intent is for it to be successful in the way that they've intended it during that event. If you're giving somebody pentobarbital to carry out an execution and they just are snoring and appear to have lost consciousness, what could that possibly be? I know you're not a medical doctor, but you are trained in toxicology and things of that nature. So what could all of that be? Could it be just almost like you're halfway there, all this snoring? Or could you just be a loss of consciousness? I mean, it could be a loss of consciousness? I mean, again, we don't, it sounds to me, I mean, my initial inclination is that the dosage was much weaker than it was supposed to be. So it was inducing sedation,

but it was not going to take her any further. And then the fact that they gave her more. And again, what they're supposed to dose someone with is typically five times or more potent and stronger than what they would give someone for a sedation scenario or pre-anesthesia. So the fact that they gave, from what I understand, two different doses, you know, it's either her body was highly resistant to the drug or, again, my inclination is that something was not right with the dosage. And then when I start looking into the fact that, you know, these drugs are not regulated, the production of these drugs are not regulated, like any other drug would be for human consumption.

It makes me wonder, like, if that really is what happened, was that they thought they had the right dosage, and it just wasn't produced properly. Wow. And her attorneys had said they had raised concerns about the pentobarbital, about blown-out veins, her not having, you know, having difficult vein access. I mean, is it possible they missed the vein? If you gave somebody pentobarbital and you missed the vein, what effect could that have? I mean, I'm not, you know, again, I'm not a medical expert in this way in terms of the veins.

I mean, clearly the drug was having an effect. So to me, that indicates that they were, they did get it into the vein because she was sedated, at least from, you know, the witness accounts. So that indicates to me that there was an introduction of the drug. And again, the big question to me is either it wasn't the right drug or it was just not the strength that it should have been. Wow. Well, it's very interesting. We're going to stay on top of it.

Bethany Pridon, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. So let's face it, there really are more questions than answers right now, including what actually happened? Were the drugs too weak? I talked to former judge and prosecutor, Phanan Rucker, who opposed the death penalty during a campaign where he ran for prosecutor. I talked to him about a lot of things, including what this third-party review could look like. The reprieve, I think, is appropriate.

When you're talking about potentially cruel and unusual punishment where a person is laid on a gurney. They have their execution date. there are people literally sitting there watching, they give their last words, they inject them with this lethal dose of chemicals, and they survive. And she even expressed that she was in pain. I heard the same thing in another state,

I think maybe three or four years ago, where the person was injected and they were in pain verbally and visibly, and it didn't take immediate effect or the effect that it should. Now, there are folks who are going to say, so what? This person is on death row because they tortured and took the life of somebody else. Why do we care that in their last moments or sometime in their incarceration, they're also somehow subjected to the torture and to the pain similar to what they gave as somebody else?

There would definitely be people who say that. And I understand the emotional sentiment. But the truth is the government should not be in the business of torture. people who by due process has been determined to have committed an offense. It's not that it's offensive to the mind that's somebody who caused others to suffer, suffers. It's offensive to the mind that the state is the entity that causes the suffering and knowingly, and it would be knowingly if they did it and it happened again. And I think this was not the first time that this actually happened in the past couple of years.

So again, you do wonder what is going on. If we can put all types of technology where we got flying cars on the way and self-driving cars, you would think that if we're going to execute people who have been convicted of crimes and suffer under the death penalty, that they would at least have the correct combination of chemicals so that they wouldn't endure something like this, but we do. And in 2026. Yeah, it's confounding to me. And you're right. The government, you know, that's why we have, you know, a constitution. We, we, we have rights and, and the government is not supposed to engage in cruel and unusual punishment. So let's let's talk now about this review. I mean, I'm assuming, I mean, there shouldn't just be a third party review. I'm wondering, I mean, it's just like, should there be almost like a criminal investigation into this? And when I say that, I mean, looking at.

100% like looking at what went wrong here and looking at this as a criminal investigation where you go through every little thing to determine what went wrong. Did somebody mix up the needles? Did somebody mess with something? Like what happened? Like you can't just this woman just has this like insane tolerance to pentobarbital. I'm having a hard time believing that. Yeah. There will certainly be a very careful critical review of.

every stage of this process. There will be a critical review of who handled the Fennel barbital and who mixed the compounds. There's chain of custody that we deal with in criminal cases when it comes to DYs or drugs or alcohol. That chain of custody issue will be critically reviewed here. Was it stored in the proper temperatures? Was it transported properly in a clean container? I mean, there's going to be a critical eye on every part of this process to see what went wrong and to make sure that if they're going to continue to meet out the death penalty using this particular lethal combination, that this doesn't happen again. Criminal, it'll depend on what's revealed as to whether or not it was intentional by someone

or whether it was so horribly wanted and reckless that criminal charges would be appropriate. I would be surprised if that is ultimately what comes out of it, because, again, we've seen this same type of thing happen, some of the other times across the country, and criminal charges aren't, have not been brought, but the investigation will reveal what the investigation reveals. But overall, it is a very torturous thing to the mind to the idea that I may have been sitting there,

even as a family member of the victims, or as a member of the media and perceive that. I mean, I don't know how many people have watched somebody else die. Many of us, unfortunately, have in our country, but it is not something that you expect. And when the government is the one who is, again, executing a person pursuant to due process and a death penalty, you certainly don't expect as a bystander to be subjected to that as well.

Yeah, and even the victim's mother, Colleen Slemer's mother was quoted as saying it was a mess. So that was a direct quote from her. So we'll get some answers here hopefully. Phelan Rucker, thank you so much. Thank you. So at the time of this recording, Krista Pike is very much alive. And her attorneys say that she is able to speak. They want Governor Lee to commute her sentence. Pike is receiving medical care at a hospital in Nashville. So we'll continue to follow the story and, you know what happens. That's it. For this episode of Crime Fix, I'm Ann Janette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.