Tennessee emergency officials released a written transcript Monday of the 911 call placed from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on September 30, the night Christa Pike’s lethal injection failed to kill her. The call came in at 8:40 p.m., after two doses of pentobarbital were administered. According to the transcript, Pike said the vein in her arm felt like it was about to bust. She was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she was initially believed to be brain dead before regaining consciousness. Her attorneys announced Saturday that she had been released from the hospital and returned to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a case that has drawn national attention for its brutality and for Pike’s documented abusive childhood. Tennessee had not attempted to execute a woman in more than 200 years. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the execution to proceed in a 6-3 decision after lower courts issued pauses. The release of the transcript, rather than the actual audio, has renewed calls for full transparency about what happened inside that facility.
The story raises difficult questions that reach well beyond Tennessee. What does a botched execution mean for the broader death penalty debate? Does a state have an obligation to release every piece of evidence from that night? And how do victims’ families process a process that doesn’t deliver what courts ordered? We want to hear from you. Should the state release the 911 audio, or is the transcript sufficient?
