Christa Pike: Tennessee’s prisons chief to resign after failed execution, governor says

The head of Tennessee’s prison system is resigning after the failed execution of Christa Pike, Governor Bill Lee announced Saturday.

Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down this month, Lee said.

Strada said in a statement that resigning was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while an independent review determines what happened Wednesday when the state failed to execute Pike despite administering two doses of a lethal drug.

“I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred,” Strada said.

Hospital staff were working to save Pike’s life and, as of late Thursday, were trying to clear the two doses of pentobarbital, which the state uses to execute prisoners, lawyers said.

The stunning failure has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Lee has ordered an independent review. Strada said he believes the state “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”

“Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realise that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms Pike’s body,” they wrote in the court filing.

Strada took over the Correction Department in January 2023 after serving as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. In late 2024, he announced that Tennessee was changing its lethal injection protocol and would use only pentobarbital.

Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage. She later became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.