Halfway2sane

“It is ordered that you shall be put to death by electrocution … on the 12th day of January 1997, your body shall be subjected to shock by sufficient current of electricity. May God have mercy upon you,” Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz said.

“Can I please hug my mum before I go?” She begged.

The answer was no.

“Please, let me just hug my mum,” she cried as she was led away, her mother reassuring her that she is loved on the way out the door.

Inside the Knox County Criminal Court that day, on March 30, 1996, 20-year-old Christa Pike  became the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in the modern era.

At the beginning of September 2026, a 226-page clemency petition was filed to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, the only person with the power to put a stop to the single drug planned to enter Christa Pike’s system in 19 days.

In it, they detail a history of violence, sexual abuse and tragedy that Christa was subjected to as a little girl, matters they said cast the killer’s crimes in a new light and should prevent her from becoming the first woman put to death in Tennessee since 1819.

At the heart of the petition is a photograph, showing Christa as a toddler.

“There is a picture of Christa as a child that I often think about,” her lawyers wrote in the petition.

“She is outside, her curly red hair is slightly blown by the wind. She has big brown eyes, and her mouth is drawn tight in a straight line.

“I think about this picture for two reasons. First, it is a beautiful picture not unlike the pictures I have of my own daughter at the same age. I am sure you have similar pictures of your daughters.

“Second, I think of this picture because I know that it was taken about the time Christa was first sexually abused. Her grandmother’s boyfriend had already begun orally raping her. To me, this picture represents a devastatingly sad turning point, where the chaos that surrounded Christa began to leave marks on her that were too much to overcome.

“A point where the chaos that surrounded Christa started to lead to cycles of depression, mania, self-medication, and abuse. Cycles that were compounded by what one expert called an ‘almost unbearably abusive background’.”

The petition relies on the horrific abuse she suffered, her diagnosis of bipolar and her 30 years served so far in solitary confinement as reasons enough for clemency.

It also leans heavily on scientific and research developments in the years after her conviction.

Christa was 18 when she killed her friend. But Tadaryl Shipp, her boyfriend and co-offender, was only 17. The difference in brain development is almost insignificant, but that’s not how the courts saw it in 1996.

Under Tennessee law, he was barred from execution because he had not yet turned 18.

“Christa Pike’s life demonstrates the tragic and lifelong consequences of growing up with constant abuse, violence, and abandonment, with no protection.”

“Decades of being brutally raped, molested, beaten, humiliated, emotionally abused, ostracized and screamed at profoundly damaged her, leaving her with a multitude of untreated psychological disorders.”

“Without protection from the adults who were supposed to have protected her, and without treatment for bipolar disorder and her other psychological disorders, Christa managed her volatile emotions and trauma-related problems as she had learned from her parents: through self-medication with marijuana and drinking.”

“At 18 years old, her immature, traumatized brain made her exceptionally vulnerable to impulses and extremely poor decisions. Unmedicated and untreated, she could not put the ‘brakes on’ her bipolar and trauma-triggered emotions.”

“Tragically, she was unable to manage the upsurge of extreme rage and fear she felt when triggered by taunts and threats to the source of love she believed she had found with her boyfriend.”

“The impact of trauma and untreated psychiatric disorders had tragic consequences.”

The last woman executed in Tennessee was Eve Martin in 1820. She was convicted of accessory to murder and hanged.

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Thirty years after her day in court, on September 30^th, 2026, Christa was attempted to be executed by lethal injection in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville Tennessee.

But the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. The concerns raised by Christa Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.

Christa’s male spiritual advisor was with her. They were talking and singing “I love you so much.

Her last words were I just want to say I just want to leave this world the way I spent most of my life and that is with love. She said she loves the people who were angry with her just as much as she loves the people who are on her side. She said I am at peace and I am ready to go.

Christa did receive two doses of Pentobarbital.

Witnesses were allowed in the witness chamber around 6:41p.m. They waited about an hour, which those that had witnessed executions before said was unusual. They say it’s usually about 10 to 15 minutes.

 The curtains first opened at 7:26p.m. They heard a little bit of crying and whimpering and then gave her last words.

 At 7:34 Christa said my arm feels like it’s about to burst open and then smiled a big smile. She then asked about that one spot on her arm asking, does this happen like that? Her advisor told her to relax and she said, “I’m trying”. She did say to her advisor, “tell (so and so) I love him”. She was then breathing, moaning and snoring.

At 7:39 p.m. she lifted her head up and looked at her left arm that had an IV in it. She was reportedly kicking her feet the entire time and kicked the sheet on her off.

At 7:41 p.m. is when the rock was placed for the first time. The rock supposedly is to signify the start of the death.

7:44 p.m. took a deep breath and 7:45 p.m. took a very large yawn.

The curtains first closed at 7:46 p.m. and she was clearly still alive and breathing and snoring. The spiritual advisor was taken out.

 7:49 p.m. he was put back in the room. Her lip quivered at one point, and it almost sounded like she was choking.  The curtains opened three minutes later and Christa was snoring very loudly at that point.

The curtains closed again at 8:05 p.m. and they remained closed.

8:06 p.m. the rock was placed for a second time. She was still breathing and snoring. Witnesses had repeatedly asked if the curtains could be opened back up because they could hear her snoring to which they didn’t really receive a response.

8:53 p.m. the microphone was cut off after the warden asked the witnesses to exit the area.

The journalists all agreed that a great deal of the execution process happened while the curtain was closed, and Christa was still alive.

She was taken from Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in an ambulance to a Nashville area hospital where her condition is unknown.

Gov. Bill Lee released a statement, which reads:

“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional but is effective. I have ordered a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred. Therefore, the remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year.

The Tennessee Department of Correction also issued a statement hours after the failed execution attempt:

“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office. The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility. “

Tennessee’s execution protocol calls for a second set of syringes to be administered “if the inmate is not deceased” after the first.

Seven people have survived medical problems due to an execution team’s failure to access a vein to administer lethal injection drugs, but no one has stayed alive after receiving the drugs used in such executions, according to the Associated Press.

This is the second time in 2026 Tennessee has been unable to carry out an execution: In May state officials called off the execution of Tony Carruthers after executioners failed to place an IV to administer the lethal injection.

Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been put to death, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Christa Pike would have been the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year.

Tennessee announced in 2024 it was switching from a three-drug series for lethal injections to the single drug pentobarbital. That came more than two years after Tennessee abruptly halted the execution of Oscar Smith and acknowledged it had failed to ensure its lethal injection drugs were tested properly.

For 31 years, May Martinez waited for justice for her daughter. Being there when Christa Pike was supposed to be put to death wasn’t about celebrating an execution.

It was about keeping a promise to her daughter.

Colleen’s mother, meanwhile, is furious that Christa isn’t in the morgue.

In a message to Tennessee’s governor and attorney general, she said, “They f–ked up.”

 Colleen’s stepfather, Raul Martinez, also slammed officials for failing to carry out the execution, and said his stepdaughter’s soul “cannot rest” until her killer is dead.

In a Facebook post he wrote, “This bitch will haunt Colleen’s heavenly journey until she’s been wiped off the face of the earth.”