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Tennessee’s top prison official is stepping down three days after the state’s attempt to execute Christa Pike failed and left her hospitalized on a ventilator.
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Shop NowGov. Bill Lee announced Saturday that Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, will leave the post, Fox News reported. Lee has called for an independent review of the state’s execution procedures.
Strada said stepping down was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while that review goes forward. “I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred,” he said.
Lee said he had accepted Strada’s decision and praised his “willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment.” The Fox News report does not name a successor or give an effective date.
The execution attempt took place Wednesday night. According to Fox News, prison staff used at least seven needles while trying to find a vein, and two doses of pentobarbital were administered. Pike, 50, was taken to a hospital, where her attorneys say she had to be intubated and put on a ventilator.
In a court filing Friday, Pike’s lawyers said she was heard crying, whimpering and breathing loudly during the procedure.
They allege that staff failed to place the IV lines correctly and did not realize a vein had burst, sending the drug into tissue rather than her bloodstream. Those are allegations from her legal team; the Fox News report cites no official finding on what went wrong.
Her four-member legal team said the resignation does not settle the matter. “What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,” the lawyers said, adding that they hope the review exposes problems across Tennessee’s death penalty system.
Pike was convicted in the killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer on Jan. 12, 1995, near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus.
Pike was 18. According to her confession, she believed Slemmer was romantically interested in her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 and received a life sentence with parole eligibility. A third teenager, Shadolla Peterson, acted as lookout and pleaded guilty to accessory charges.
Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Strada had led the department since January 2023 and announced in late 2024 that the state would use pentobarbital alone. Four people have been executed in Tennessee since last year.
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