NASHVILLE, TN — Tennessee's prison chief has resigned after the state's failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike left her in critical condition on a ventilator.
Gov. Bill Lee announced on October 3, 2026, that Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada has offered his resignation and will step down later this month.
Strada oversaw the September 30 execution attempt of Christa Pike, 50, who was scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
According to court filings and reporting by USA TODAY and The Tennessean, Pike survived two rounds of lethal injection drugs. Her attorneys said she is unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator at a Nashville-area hospital, with hospital staff working to clear pentobarbital from her body.
"Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment," Gov. Lee said. "I have accepted his decision to step down."
In a statement released by Lee's office, Strada said:
"I continue to believe the Department carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol. Even so, stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward. I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred."
Gov. Lee has halted all executions in Tennessee for the remainder of 2026 and ordered a comprehensive independent third-party investigation into what went wrong.
Pike's attorneys allege the IV lines were incorrectly placed and her veins blew, causing the pentobarbital to flow into tissue instead of her bloodstream. They wrote in a court filing: "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."
Strada was appointed by Lee in January 2023. He previously served as deputy director for Arizona's Department of Corrections, where he was a top official during three lethal injection executions that were later criticized for serious problems with IV access, the Nashville Tennessean reported.
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer, a fellow student at the Job Corps Center in Knoxville, in 1995. She was sentenced to death in 1996.
The victim's family, who waited hours inside the prison on Sept. 30, said the botched procedure was a "slap in the face."
This is a developing story!
Sources: New York Post, USA TODAY, The Tennessean, AP, Office of Gov. Bill Lee
