Christa Pike’s failed execution has temporarily halted Tennessee’s death penalty schedule—and may have spared fellow death row prisoner Gary Wayne Sutton from execution, at least for now.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee suspended the state’s remaining executions for the year after Pike survived two doses of lethal-injection medication and was taken to a hospital. Lee ordered an independent investigation into the highly publicized incident to determine how the execution went awry.
“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities,” Lee said, adding that Tennesseans expect executions to be conducted in a way that is “not only legal and constitutional, but is effective.”
The pause also gives Sutton a temporary reprieve. He had been scheduled to become the final Tennessee inmate executed this year, with his execution set for Dec. 3, News 10 reported.
Sutton was convicted with his uncle, James Dellinger, in the 1992 killing of Tommy Griffin. Prosecutors said the pair killed Griffin less than an hour after bailing him out of jail, then murdered Griffin’s sister, Connie Branam, the following day when she went searching for her brother. Branam’s vehicle was later set on fire.
Sutton has consistently denied committing either murder, despite the convictions.
“Other than the fact I didn’t do this, [Griffin] was my best friend that got killed,” Sutton told News 10 in 2024. “I think that gets lost on people that don’t know nothing about this, they don’t understand, this was my best friend.”
Gary Wayne Sutton is Convicted of Killing Siblings James Dellinger and Connie Branam
The killings occurred in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, several months after prosecutors said Sutton fought physically with one of Griffin’s relatives around Christmas 1991. According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Sutton allegedly “repeatedly stomped” on the man’s head, leaving him hospitalized.
On Feb. 15, 1992, Dellinger told a police officer that he believed “one of the Griffins” had fired multiple shots into his trailer, authorities said.
Six days later, on Feb. 21, Dellinger and Sutton were seen having drinks with Griffin at Howie’s Hideway Lounge. Court records say a waitress placed the three men leaving the bar at about 7 p.m.
Soon afterward, a 911 caller reported seeing a shirtless man—later identified as Griffin—staggering along the roadside. The caller said Griffin had been dropped there by Sutton and Dellinger.
Officer Drew Roberts responded and found Griffin suffering from “scrapes and scratches to his upper body, and a cut behind his left ear,” according to the court records.
The officer described Griffin as frightened and nearly in tears. Court documents said Griffin told Roberts he had argued with people he considered friends, but who “were not really his friends,” before they forced him out of the car.
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Griffin was arrested on a public-intoxication charge and taken to jail. Sutton and Dellinger later bailed him out, arriving at about 11:25 p.m. with a flannel shirt for him to wear.
About 30 minutes later, a witness reported hearing two or three gunshots near the location where Griffin’s body was eventually discovered.
The following day, Branam visited Howie’s Hideway Lounge with Sutton and Dellinger while trying to find her brother. Trial witnesses testified that the three shared drinks before leaving the establishment together, according to court records.
Later that night, a witness saw flames among the trees but did not investigate. Roughly a week later, the witness came across Branam’s body inside a severely burned vehicle.
Sutton and Dellinger were convicted in both killings and sentenced to death. Dellinger died of natural causes on death row in 2023, Knox News reported.
Gary Wayne Sutton’s Attorneys Oppose Execution, Question Motive
Following Lee’s decision to suspend executions, Sutton’s lawyers said they would continue pursuing his case.
“This news gives us little joy, because nobody should be forced to suffer the way Christa Pike did this week,” Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender Johnna Henry said in a statement to Knox News after Pike’s failed execution. “Still, we are relieved that Governor Lee is taking the deep problems with the state’s execution protocols seriously, and we are thankful that Gary’s execution has been paused.”
His attorneys have argued that Sutton’s intellectual disability should be factored into any punishment decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment.
They also said a medical examiner who testified at his trial lost his license after he was discredited and point to Sutton’s continued claims of innocence.
“Prosecutors never established a motive for Sutton to kill Griffin,” they continued in the statement, “and they offered no physical evidence connecting Sutton to the crime.”
Oxygen reached out to the attorneys, but did not receive an immediate reply.
Blount County District Attorney General Ryan Desmond, whose office prosecuted the cases decades earlier, turned the focus back to the victims’ families.
“The real victims of this debacle are the surviving families of the victims of convicted murders on death row,” he told 10 News, “who continue to face no finality in the pursuit of justice for the killing of their loved ones.”
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