The head of Tennessee’s prison system is set to resign after the botched execution of Christa Pike, who remains unconscious and on a ventilator at a Nashville-area hospital.
Gov. Bill Lee on Saturday announced Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down from his post later this month. The staffing shakeup comes just three days after Pike survived a double dose of pentobarbital, which the state uses to execute prisoners.
Lee has also called for a full, independent review of what may have gone wrong, and he has pressed pause on the last execution the state had scheduled for this year.
“Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment,” the governor said in a statement.
“I have accepted his decision to step down and am grateful for his commitment to ensuring a smooth leadership transition,” he continued. “I thank Commissioner Strada for his dedicated service to Tennessee and pray God’s blessings over him in the days ahead.”
Pike, now 50 and fighting for her life, was convicted of first-degree murder for brutally torturing and killing Colleen Slemmer, 19, in a wooded area of the University of Tennessee agricultural campus on Jan. 12, 1995.
On the night of the attack, Pike, her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, 17, and an acquaintance, Shadolla Peterson, 18, lured Slemmer to an isolated area behind the agricultural campus steam plant. There, Pike and Shipp violently tortured Slemmer before killing her, while Peterson acted as lookout.
Pike’s legal team on Saturday praised Strada’s forthcoming exit, but said in a statement, “It does nothing to help Christa now.”
“What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,” they continued. “We hope the governor’s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”
In addition to Pike being intubated and put on a ventilator, her arms were swollen, blistered and bruised from the lethal injection drugs, her attorneys said in an emergency motion filed earlier this week.
“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,” the emergency motion said.
Strada was appointed commissioner of Tennessee’s Department of Correction by Lee in January 2023, after serving as deputy director of Arizona’s Department of Correction. Strada said in a statement that he believes “the Department carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol,” but that “stepping aside is in the best interest” of the state.
With News Wire Services