00:04Krista Pike was given not one but two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital and is
00:08still alive and breathing. Pike was set to be the first woman executed in the state of Tennessee in
00:13200 years this week, but to paraphrase one witness at her execution, nothing about the day was normal.
00:19After last-ditch efforts for the courts to halt her death sentence from being carried out, the
00:2350-year-old was strapped to a gurney and given the lethal injection. She didn't die. Now,
00:28there is a protocol in place for this. A backup dose is always on hand. So an hour after the
00:32first
00:33dose, they shot her up with the second. When she still wasn't dead 20 minutes later, authorities
00:38cleared the gallery. Witnesses said Pike could be heard snoring. Now, at times it appeared labored.
00:43She was snoring at times, but she was still breathing. Her lawyers blamed, quote, difficult
00:48vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, and no emergency medical care available when things
00:53inevitably go wrong. The convicted killer was taken to a hospital where life-saving measures were
00:57performed and a doctor hired by her defense team said she likely has a brain injury. Pike was just
01:0118 when she brutally tortured a classmate to death in a jealous rage over her boyfriend who assisted
01:06in the killing. She was sentenced to death in 1996. She now has a stay of execution at least until
01:11the
01:11end of the year. The governor of Tennessee requested an independent review of what went wrong
01:15and suspended all executions for 2026.
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