Anesthesiologist who advised Christa Pike’s defense speaks out against lethal injection
Anesthesiologist Dr. Joel Zivot joined Bill Hemmer to examine the legal consequences of a judge’s order requiring Tennessee officials to preserve evidence from the failed execution of Christa Pike. Zivot, who advised Pike’s legal team, discussed the complications involving the lethal injection drugs used in the state’s attempt. Pike remains on Tennessee’s death row after surviving the botched execution.
A former Tennessee police chief who investigated the murder that led to Christa Pike’s death sentence recalled the convicted killer as “ruthless” and “almost giddy” when she described the crime to investigators. His comments came as Gov. Bill Lee indicated that Pike’s sentence is unlikely to change after she survived the failed execution.
Pike, now 50, survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection on Sept. 30 and was returned to prison. Her case has raised questions about whether the state may try to carry out the death sentence again.
Lee addressed Pike’s legal status Wednesday, saying she remains incarcerated under Tennessee law.
“I suspect her sentence will be the same as it was before unless determined otherwise by the courts,” Lee said.
A split image shows Christa Pike at her 1995 murder trial, left, and Colleen Slemmer, the young woman Pike was convicted of torturing and killing, on the right. (Reuters)
The governor spoke as Pike’s attorneys urged him to commute her death sentence to life in prison without parole following the unsuccessful execution attempt.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, who was taking part in a federal Job Corps program in Knoxville alongside Pike.
Former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith, who participated in the investigation, recently described Pike’s demeanor during questioning in the New York Post documentary “No Mercy: Christa Pike Unraveled.”
“I heard somebody that was ruthless, without any remorse, almost giddy,” Keith said. “You know, she was describing what took place, like, almost the sense that she was bragging about it.”
Convicted killer Christa Gail Pike listens to proceedings in April 2008 at Knox County Criminal Court during an effort to obtain a new trial in the 1995 killing of fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
Keith reaffirmed those remarks to News Media, describing them as “spot on.” He summed up his view of Pike in two words: “Pure evil.”
Keith also recalled Pike speaking openly about the killing after she returned to the Job Corps program.
“Pike, when she got back, you know, immediately had to express her joy with killing Colleen,” Keith said in the documentary. “And then the very next day in class, she bragged again, talking about how she killed Colleen. She showed her shoes that had blood on them.”
Pike was 18 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and 19-year-old Shadolla Peterson were charged in Slemmer’s killing. Court records show that all four were participating in the Job Corps at the time.
The three took Slemmer to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus. Prosecutors said her throat was cut several times, she was hit in the head with a large piece of asphalt and a pentagram was carved into her chest.
Christa Gail Pike appears remotely from Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation during a hearing at Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tenn., on Aug. 11, 2026. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
READ MORE: Israeli Journalist Ephraim Mordechai Arrested – NewsFinale
According to court records, Pike later confessed to her role in the killing.
Keith said the violence at the crime scene stunned even experienced homicide investigators.
“I was accustomed to seeing that kind of gore, if you will. But the brutality was different,” Keith said in the Post documentary.
“You know, the visual scene of it, it was so shocking,” he added.
Pike was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996, and the Tennessee Supreme Court later affirmed her convictions and sentence.
Christa Gail Pike was scheduled to be executed on September 30, 2026, which would have made her the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP)
More than three decades later, Tennessee attempted to carry out that sentence on Sept. 30 after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a last-minute stay issued by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The execution attempt failed after Pike received two doses of pentobarbital, and she was taken to a hospital.
She remained unconscious for days, and her attorneys at one point believed she was brain-dead and expected her to be taken off life support. Pike later regained consciousness and was discharged from the hospital before being returned to prison.
Her attorneys have since said she is able to walk and speak in full sentences.
Following the execution attempt, Lee halted Tennessee’s remaining executions for the year and ordered an independent review of what went wrong.
Randy Spivey, an attorney for Christa Pike, a death row prisoner who survived a botched execution, speaks to the media, flanked by Luke Ihnen, after a Tennessee court was presented a status update on Pike, outside a courtroom in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 7, 2026. (Reuters/Seth Herald)
Pike’s attorneys have argued she should not be subjected to another execution attempt.
The push for commutation predates the failed execution.
In a 2021 filing with the Tennessee Supreme Court, Pike’s attorneys sought a certificate of commutation, pointing to her age at the time of Slemmer’s murder as well as her history of childhood trauma, mental illness and brain damage.
News Media reached out to Pike’s attorneys and Lee’s office for additional comment, and to Keith to confirm the context of his remarks.