NASHVILLE — The head of Tennessee’s prison system is resigning after the failed execution of Christa Pike, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday.
Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will step down this month, Lee said.
Strada said in a statement that resigning “is in the best interests” of the state as an independent review is carried out to determine why Pike’s execution failed Wednesday.
Pike was placed on a ventilator and remained unconscious in a hospital, her attorneys said in a court filing Friday.
Hospital staff, her lawyers said, were working to save Pike’s life and as of late Thursday were trying to clear the two doses of the drug that the state uses to execute prisoners.
The stunning failure in Tennessee’s execution chamber on Wednesday has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Lee has ordered an independent review.
Pike’s attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.
“Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike’s body,” they wrote in the court filing.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage. She later became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.
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