For more than three decades, May Martinez waited for the State of Tennessee to carry out the death sentence imposed on the woman convicted of murdering her daughter.

She traveled from Florida to Nashville expecting September 30, 2026, to mark the end of that painful legal journey.

Instead, Martinez watched as Tennessee administered two doses of pentobarbital to Christa Gail Pike without killing her.

Pike remained alive, was transported from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution to a hospital, and initially required intensive medical treatment.

Her attorneys said she was unconscious and placed on a ventilator after the procedure.

Six days later, they announced that she had regained consciousness and was able to speak, although only to a limited extent.

She remained hospitalized while questions intensified about her injuries, Tennessee’s lethal-injection protocol, and whether the state could legally or ethically attempt to execute her again.

For Martinez, the failed execution created another layer of anguish in a case that began with the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old daughter, Colleen Slemmer.

“I didn’t get justice for my daughter,” Martinez told the Associated Press.

She later said Tennessee owed her a significant apology.

A Mother Traveled to Witness the Sentence

Martinez and her husband, Raul Martinez Jr., traveled to Nashville after members of their community helped raise money for transportation and lodging.

They entered Riverbend Maximum Security Institution believing they would witness the conclusion of a case that had followed their family for 31 years.

Pike was 18 when she participated in Slemmer’s killing near the University of Tennessee Agricultural Campus in Knoxville.

A jury later convicted her of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence, noting that jurors found the killing especially cruel and that it had been committed partly to prevent an arrest or prosecution.

Pike’s execution date was formally set for September 30, 2026.

The case attracted national attention because Pike was Tennessee’s only woman on death row and would have been the first woman executed by the state in more than two centuries.

It also produced years of debate over her age at the time of the crime, mental health, history of childhood abuse, expressions of remorse, and the different sentence received by her co-defendant.

For Slemmer’s family, however, the scheduled execution represented the enforcement of a sentence repeatedly reviewed by the courts.

Martinez went to Nashville expecting that sentence to be completed.

That did not happen.

What Witnesses Said They Saw

According to witness accounts, the execution began after last-minute litigation delayed the scheduled procedure.

Tennessee used pentobarbital, a powerful sedative that the state intended to administer as a lethal dose.

Martinez said Pike remained visibly responsive after the first dose.

“I watched the whole thing,” she said in a later interview.

“She was awake.”

Martinez reported seeing Pike move her head and feet and attempt to raise herself.

When the first dose did not produce the expected result, officials administered a backup dose.

Pike still did not die.

Raul Martinez Jr., Slemmer’s stepfather, also described seeing movement inside the execution chamber.

He said Pike repeatedly moved her toes and lifted her head.

At different stages, a curtain separating witnesses from the chamber was closed.

Raul said that even after the curtain had been drawn, he could hear what sounded like snoring or gurgling.

The precise medical meaning of those sounds has not been independently established.

The family’s descriptions represent what they witnessed and heard from the observation area, not a final medical finding.

Media witnesses similarly reported an extended and confusing procedure.

The Associated Press later reconstructed the events in a minute-by-minute account.

Eventually, witnesses were removed.

Martinez said officials did not immediately explain what had happened.

“They didn’t say anything, and then, all of a sudden, they asked all the victims to leave,” she recalled.

The family later encountered Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, who told them the execution had not worked and that Pike was being taken to a hospital.

“I Didn’t Get Justice for My Daughter”

For Martinez, the breakdown was not merely a procedural failure.

It meant returning home without the finality she believed the execution would provide.

She said the state failed both her and Colleen.

“I didn’t get justice for my daughter,” she told the Associated Press.

In an interview with Jacksonville ABC affiliate WJXX, Martinez said, “I think that the state owes me a big apology.”

Martinez also recalled asking officials whether Pike would be returned to prison.

According to her account, an official responded that authorities did not yet know what would happen.

After waiting 31 years, Martinez said the uncertainty felt like another insult.

She later indicated that she might not return to Tennessee if the state schedules another execution.

Witnessing the failed procedure had already imposed an emotional and financial burden on the family.

Her reaction illustrates one of the consequences of a failed execution that can receive less attention: the effect on a victim’s relatives.

Capital punishment is often described as providing finality, but long appeals, changing protocols, last-minute court decisions, and procedural failures can force families to revisit a violent loss repeatedly.

Whatever one’s position on the death penalty, Martinez did not create Tennessee’s execution protocol and had no control over its implementation.

She arrived because the state told her the sentence would be carried out.

Instead, she left with more questions.

Pike Was Taken for Lifesaving Treatment

Following the failed execution, Pike was transported to a Nashville-area hospital.

Her attorneys initially said she was unconscious, receiving lifesaving care, and connected to a ventilator.

They described severe injuries to her arms, including swelling, burns, and blisters.

They alleged that execution personnel had difficulty establishing intravenous access and that pentobarbital may have entered the tissue surrounding a vein rather than moving properly into her bloodstream.

That possibility is known as infiltration or extravasation.

It has not yet been established as the official cause of the execution failure.

Pike’s defense had warned before the execution that her blood condition and difficult veins could complicate IV placement.

Her lawyers said execution personnel made numerous attempts to obtain access.

Tennessee officials maintained that the execution team followed the state’s approved procedure.

The Department of Correction had not yet released a complete public explanation determining why the drugs failed to produce death.

On October 6, Pike’s lawyers announced a significant change in her condition.

They said she was conscious and speaking to a limited degree while continuing to receive critical medical care.

Her long-term prognosis remained uncertain.

The update superseded earlier reports that described her only as unconscious and dependent on a ventilator.

Her Attorneys Want the Evidence Preserved

Pike’s legal team asked a court to require the preservation and inspection of evidence from the execution.

The requested materials reportedly include syringes, needles, tubing, drug residue, pentobarbital information, photographs, video, execution logs, and other records that might show what occurred.

Her attorneys argue that independent access to the evidence is necessary to evaluate whether the drugs were properly prepared and administered.

Tennessee authorities have said relevant evidence is being preserved, but Pike’s lawyers sought a formal order rather than relying solely on assurances from the same department responsible for the execution.

Reuters reported on October 7 that her attorneys were asking a judge to allow examination of the syringes and other equipment.

The findings could influence several major questions:

• Whether Tennessee followed its written protocol
• Whether the IV lines were properly placed
• Whether the pentobarbital had the expected potency
• Whether Pike experienced unconstitutional suffering
• Whether the state can lawfully schedule another execution
• What changes Tennessee must make before resuming executions

At this stage, no independent investigation has issued final conclusions.

Governor Calls the Outcome “Deeply Disturbing”

Tennessee Gov.

Bill Lee, who had denied Pike’s request for clemency, described the failed execution as a tragedy and “deeply disturbing.”

He ordered a comprehensive third-party review and paused Tennessee’s remaining scheduled execution for 2026.

The review is expected to examine the preparation of the execution drugs, medical procedures, IV placement, staff decisions, communication, and compliance with the state’s protocol.

The failure was especially serious because it followed another abandoned Tennessee execution earlier in 2026 in which officials reportedly had difficulty establishing intravenous access.

That history has increased pressure on the state to explain whether the problems resulted from individual mistakes or broader weaknesses within the execution system.

Without an independent report, assigning responsibility to a particular employee or medical step would be premature.

But the outcome itself is undisputed: Tennessee intended to execute Pike, administered an initial and backup dose of its execution drug, and failed to carry out the sentence.

Correction Commissioner Announces His Departure

The political consequences reached the highest level of Tennessee’s prison system.

Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, who had overseen the department responsible for the execution, announced that he would leave his position.

Strada said his departure was in the best interest of Tennesseans while the independent examination moved forward.

His resignation does not, by itself, establish that he personally caused the failure or that investigators have reached a conclusion about responsibility.

Nevertheless, the change in leadership demonstrated the seriousness of the crisis facing the Department of Correction.

The commissioner had been responsible for an agency charged with carrying out one of the most consequential powers held by government—the deliberate taking of a human life under a judicial sentence.

When that process failed, both the condemned prisoner and the victim’s family were left to live with the consequences.

A Case With Two Forms of Suffering

Public discussion following the failed execution quickly divided into familiar positions.

Death-penalty opponents focused on Pike’s injuries and argued that the procedure demonstrated the unpredictability and cruelty of lethal injection.

Supporters of the sentence emphasized the brutality of Slemmer’s murder and the decades her family spent waiting for the judgment to be enforced.

Those concerns do not erase one another.

Pike was convicted of participating in a horrifying crime that ended a 19-year-old woman’s life.

Slemmer’s mother has spent more than three decades without her daughter.

At the same time, a death sentence does not authorize the state to use an uncontrolled or unnecessarily torturous procedure.

The government remains legally obligated to follow constitutional requirements and its own execution protocol.

The failed execution therefore created two separate accountability questions.

The first concerns justice for Colleen Slemmer and whether Tennessee can fulfill the sentence imposed for her murder.

The second concerns the state’s treatment of Pike and whether the attempted execution violated constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Courts and investigators will need to address both.

Could Tennessee Attempt Another Execution?

Pike remains under a death sentence.

Surviving an execution attempt does not automatically convert that sentence to life imprisonment.

Her lawyers, however, are seeking commutation and are likely to argue that another attempt would violate the Constitution because of the suffering and injuries she already experienced.

The issue is legally complex.

Future litigation could examine her current medical condition, the details of the failed procedure, whether another execution would create an unacceptable risk of severe pain, and whether subjecting her to a second execution process would violate constitutional protections.

Her ability to understand the proceedings may also become relevant if the failed execution caused lasting neurological or cognitive damage.

Medical experts may need weeks or months to evaluate her full recovery.

Until the investigation and litigation progress, there is no responsible basis for predicting whether Tennessee will schedule another date.

Gov.

Lee could commute the sentence to life imprisonment, but he has not announced that he will do so.

Courts could also restrict future action depending on the evidence.

For now, Pike remains hospitalized, conscious according to her attorneys, and under the state’s death sentence.

The Apology Martinez Is Still Waiting to Hear

Martinez’s demand for an apology is not necessarily a statement about whether Pike suffered.

It is a statement about what Tennessee promised the victim’s family and how the state communicated when that promise collapsed.

Martinez traveled hundreds of miles, entered an execution witness room, watched a prolonged procedure, and was removed without receiving a clear immediate explanation.

She expected an ending.

Instead, she watched another traumatic event connected to her daughter’s murder.

An apology would not restore Colleen’s life.

It would not return the decades her family lost, resolve the legal questions, or determine what should happen to Pike.

But for Martinez, acknowledgment appears to matter.

The state required her to trust that it was prepared to carry out the sentence safely, lawfully, and competently.

That trust was broken.

More than three decades after her daughter’s murder, May Martinez returned home without the justice she believed she had traveled to witness.

The condemned woman remained alive.

The corrections commissioner prepared to leave his position.

The governor halted additional executions and ordered an outside review.

And a grieving mother was once again left waiting for Tennessee to explain what went wrong.

CASE STATUS:

Christa Pike remained hospitalized as of October 7, 2026.

Her attorneys said she had regained consciousness and was speaking to a limited extent.

Tennessee’s remaining execution scheduled for 2026 was postponed while an independent review proceeded.

Pike’s death sentence had not been commuted.

SOURCE TRANSPARENCY:

This article was developed from reporting by the Associated Press, Reuters, ABC News, PEOPLE, Tennessee court records, and statements attributed to Pike’s attorneys, state officials, and Colleen Slemmer’s family.

Descriptions from execution witnesses are attributed to those witnesses.

Allegations concerning IV infiltration, drug administration, and Pike’s injuries remain subject to medical examination, litigation, and the independent state review.