The failed execution of Christa Pike has prompted Tennessee to delay the scheduled lethal injection of another death row prisoner, who had been only weeks away from execution.
Gary Wayne Sutton, 57, was due to be executed on December 3 for the 1992 killings of siblings Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam. He has spent more than 30 years on Tennessee’s death row while continuing to deny the charges.
The state called off Sutton’s execution after Pike remained alive during Tennessee’s attempt to kill her on Wednesday, even after she was given two lethal doses of pentobarbital.
Following the unprecedented incident, Governor Bill Lee suspended Tennessee’s remaining execution and commissioned a comprehensive independent investigation into the state’s lethal-injection process.
As a result, Sutton will not die by lethal injection on the date originally set, a decision welcomed by his lawyers as he continues to maintain his innocence.
‘This news brings us little happiness, because no one should have been made to endure what Christa Pike experienced this week or what Tony Carruthers endured in May,’ Sutton’s legal team said.
‘Even so, we are relieved that Governor Lee recognizes the serious flaws in Tennessee’s execution procedures, and we are grateful that Gary’s execution has been put on hold.’
Pike, 50, remains in critical condition in a hospital, where she is receiving what her lawyers describe as ‘life-saving care’ after the failed execution.
Gary Wayne Sutton, 57, has spent more than three decades on Tennessee’s death row over the 1992 murders of siblings Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam, crimes he has always said he did not commit
Pike remains critically ill and is receiving life-saving treatment after execution staff used at least seven needles while attempting to inject her, according to her attorneys
Pike had been set to become Tennessee’s first woman executed in more than two centuries. Her sentence stemmed from the brutal 1995 murder of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Instead, staff encountered repeated difficulties locating a usable vein. At least seven needles were inserted into Pike’s left arm before the execution drugs were finally administered.
Pike reportedly said her arm felt as if it were going to ‘burst open.’ Her lawyer, Randy Spivey, said he watched her right arm turn purple during the procedure.
Witnesses later reported that Pike began snoring, yet she remained alive well beyond the point when the lethal injection was expected to have taken effect.
Associated Press reporter Kim Chandler, who observed the attempted execution, said Pike was ‘loudly snoring, clearly very alive’ when members of the media were eventually escorted from the chamber.
Pike was subsequently transported from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment.
‘This failed attempt is the worst we have ever seen and stands apart from every other botched execution in the modern era,’ said Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Pike’s attorneys are now asking Governor Lee to commute her death sentence, arguing that she has already been subjected to an attempted execution.
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Pike sang, groaned and snored during more than 90 minutes inside the death chamber, pictured, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution
Pike was sentenced to death at age 20 in 1996. She is pictured crying during her sentencing hearing
Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during her execution on September 30 in Tennessee. She is now unconscious in a guarded hospital room and may never recover
Sutton, meanwhile, has unexpectedly been spared from facing Tennessee’s execution team – at least for now.
He and his uncle James Dellinger were sentenced to death over the killings of Griffin, 24, and Branam, 34.
Griffin was found shot in the head near Little River on February 24, 1992. Five days later, Branam’s body was discovered inside her burned-out vehicle.
Dellinger died of natural causes on death row in 2023 at age 71.
Sutton has maintained that he did not commit the murders, and his lawyers have stepped up efforts to stop his execution as the December date approaches.
‘Prosecutors never established a motive for Sutton to kill Griffin, and they offered no physical evidence connecting Sutton to the crime,’ his attorney has said.
His legal team has also described the case as ‘riddled with errors’ and has sought an evaluation to determine whether Sutton has an intellectual disability.
The Supreme Court has ruled that people with intellectual disabilities cannot constitutionally be executed.
The scandal also led Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada to announce that he is resigning and will step down later this month
A judge ordered Sutton to undergo an evaluation, while a decision remains pending over whether evidence concerning the claim will be heard.
But the latest delay has brought renewed anguish for Griffin and Branam’s relatives, who have spent decades waiting for the sentence to be carried out.
‘I just wish they did life without parole so we don’t have to sit here and go through this every so often,’ a member of the victims’ family tearfully told WBIR.
‘But back then we wanted the death sentence for them because of what they’ve done and now we still have to live it.’
Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada announced his resignation on Saturday, saying that stepping aside was ‘in the best interests’ of Tennessee and describing the investigation into the procedure as ‘entirely appropriate and necessary.’