A PARENT'S WORST NIGHTMARE: WATCHING THEIR DAUGHTER'S KILLER CHEAT DEATH TWICE!
For more than 30 years, May Martinez carried the memory of her daughter, Colleen Slemmer, and waited for the day she would finally see the sentence against her daughter's killer carried out.
Then, on September 30, 2026, Martinez sat inside Tennessee's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution expecting to witness an execution.
Instead, she watched something no parent could have imagined.
The woman convicted of killing her daughter survived the first lethal injection. Then she survived the second.
Christa Pike, 50, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. But after two doses of pentobarbital were administered, Pike remained alive.
Witnesses reported that she was still breathing and making snoring sounds long after the procedure began. She was eventually taken from the prison by ambulance and transported to a hospital.
For Martinez, the moment was not simply a failed execution.
It was another devastating reminder of the daughter she lost.
SHE DROVE 11 HOURS FOR CLOSURE
According to People, Martinez and her husband, Raul, drove approximately 11 hours from Florida to Tennessee to witness Pike's execution.
They believed they were finally going to see the sentence carried out.
Instead, Martinez watched as the execution unfolded in a way that neither she nor the other witnesses expected.
At one point, Pike reportedly remained conscious enough to speak about pain in her arm. Witnesses later described hearing her breathing and snoring even after the second dose of pentobarbital had been administered.
The execution chamber eventually went quiet from the witnesses' perspective—but Pike was still alive.
She was taken away in an ambulance rather than a hearse.
That single detail captured the extraordinary turn the night had taken.
TWO DOSES. STILL ALIVE.
The state had prepared to carry out a single-drug execution using pentobarbital.
According to court filings and witness accounts, officials administered a second dose after the first failed to produce the expected result.
Yet Pike remained alive.
The Associated Press reported that witnesses could hear her breathing and snoring after the second dose. Her attorneys then filed emergency motions seeking to halt the execution, arguing that she remained conscious and was suffering.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said its personnel followed the state's established execution protocol.
But what happened inside the chamber immediately became the subject of an investigation.
Gov. Bill Lee ordered a comprehensive third-party review and suspended Tennessee's remaining scheduled executions for 2026.
For Martinez, however, the larger question was deeply personal:
After everything her family had endured, why was Colleen's killer still alive?
THE WOMAN AT THE CENTER OF IT ALL
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted in connection with Slemmer's 1995 killing.
Slemmer was 19.
The case became one of Tennessee's most notorious murder cases, and Pike eventually spent more than three decades on death row.
On the night of the attempted execution, Pike reportedly told witnesses she was at peace and ready to leave the world.
But the expected final moments never came.
Instead, the procedure became a medical emergency.
Pike was ultimately transported to an outside medical facility. As of the latest reports, her medical condition had not been publicly disclosed.
That uncertainty added another layer to an already extraordinary night.
“I DID NOT TAKE MY EYES OFF HER”
Martinez's experience was especially striking because she was not watching from a television screen.
She was there.
She watched the woman convicted of killing her daughter enter the execution chamber. And she watched the process fail.
People reported that Martinez later described keeping her eyes on Pike throughout the attempt.
For a parent who had spent decades waiting for an ending, there was no clean conclusion that night.
There was only another unanswered question.
Would there ever be a final chapter?
TENNESSEE NOW HAS TO EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED
The failed execution has raised questions about Tennessee's execution procedures and what happens when an inmate remains alive after the state's planned lethal dose—and then a second dose.
The state has said its protocol was followed, while officials have ordered an independent review into the failure.
The incident was also particularly unusual because Pike was not merely alive after an attempted IV placement.
She received the execution drug twice and remained alive afterward.
Death-penalty experts described the event as highly unusual, with AP reporting that no previous modern Tennessee case had involved someone remaining alive after receiving the drugs used in a lethal injection.
For Martinez and her family, however, the technical questions surrounding the execution cannot erase the reason they were there in the first place.
They came for Colleen.
They left without the closure they expected.
And the woman convicted of taking their daughter's life walked—or, ultimately, was transported—out of the prison alive.
A parent came to witness justice for a daughter lost decades ago. Instead, she watched the execution fail twice.
May you like
Now the question is no longer simply what happened inside Tennessee's execution chamber.
It is what happens next.
