Tennessee prison chief resigns after failed execution

A picture taken on December 4, 2007 shows death row inmate Christa Pike entering a Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, US., obtained by Reuters on September 30, 2026. J. Miles Cary/ Knoxville News Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK via REUTERS

Oct 3 - The head of the Tennessee Department of Correction will step down this month, state officials said on Saturday, days after convicted murderer Christa Pike was left gravely ill from the state's failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection.

The botched execution on Wednesday left Pike unconscious, intubated and hooked to a mechanical ventilator to breathe, her lawyers wrote in a Friday court filing. It is the state's second failed execution attempt this year, prompting Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to halt attempts to carry out the death penalty for the rest of 2026.

Lee said on Saturday that Frank Strada has resigned as Department of Correction commissioner and would leave his position this month. The governor had ordered an independent review of the execution attempt at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the state capital.

Strada, in a separate statement, said that although he believes his agency's personnel followed proper protocol, "stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward."

An interim commissioner will be announced later, the governor's office said.

"Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment,” Lee said in a statement.

Pike's lawyers have accused Correction Department officials of ignoring prior warnings from her doctors that her small veins and a blood disorder called thrombocytosis would make placing intravenous lines especially difficult.

Pike, 50, was convicted three decades ago of first-degree murder for her role in the torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when Pike was 18.

Doctors were working to save Pike's life and clear the drug pentobarbital from her system, her lawyers said on Friday. REUTERS