What Really Happened in Christa Pike's Execution Room? Media Witness Breaks It Down
Criminally ObsessedShow Notes
HE WAS AT CHRISTA PIKE’S BOTCHED EXECUTION: Christa Pike was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee on September 30, 2026. What was meant to be a day of closure for Colleen’s family after decades of grieving ended up becoming one of the most chaotic days – and nights – in execution history.
Steven Hale was in the room where it happened.
In this episode of Criminally Obsessed, investigative reporter Anne Emerson speaks with Hale, a reporter for the Nashville Banner and author of Death Row Welcomes You, who served as one of seven media witnesses inside the execution chamber. This was Hale's fifth time witnessing an execution in Tennessee, but he says nothing prepared him for what happened this time: after the first dose of pentobarbital was administered, Pike remained audibly alive, talking, moving, and even asking prison officials, "Is it supposed to happen like this?"
Hale walks us through the moment prison staff abruptly closed the curtain on the witness room — even though Pike could still be heard breathing — and describes being left in near-total darkness for nearly 50 minutes, writing his notes blind as doors opened and closed and Pike's spiritual advisor and attorney moved in and out of the room. He recounts the surreal scene that followed: being escorted out of the prison still believing Pike was alive, only to watch an ambulance race in with sirens on as the press conference began.
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