Christa Pike’s botched execution saves other death row killer

Christa Pike‘s botched execution has delivered a last-minute reprieve to another Tennessee death row inmate who was just weeks away from receiving his own lethal injection.

Gary Wayne Sutton, 57, had been scheduled to be put to death on December 3 for the murders of siblings Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam in 1992. He has spent more than three decades on death row.

But his execution has now been halted after Pike survived Tennessee’s attempt to put her to death on Wednesday – despite receiving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Governor Bill Lee suspended the state’s remaining execution following the unprecedented ordeal and ordered a comprehensive independent review of Tennessee’s lethal-injection procedures.

The decision means Sutton, who has always maintained his innocence, will not be executed as scheduled.

‘This news gives us little joy, because nobody should be forced to suffer the way Christa Pike did this week and Tony Carruthers did in May,’ Sutton’s legal team said.

‘Still, we are relieved that Governor Lee is taking the deep problems with the state’s execution protocols seriously, and we are thankful that Gary’s execution has been paused.’

Pike, 50, remains critically ill in hospital and has been receiving ‘life-saving care’ after her botched execution.

She had been due to become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years for the brutal 1995 murder of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer.

Instead, execution staff struggled to establish IV access, using at least seven needles on Pike’s left arm alone before administering the drugs.

Pike complained that her arm felt as though it would ‘burst open,’ while her attorney Randy Spivey said he watched her right arm turn purple.

Witnesses said she eventually began snoring but remained alive long after she was expected to die.

Associated Press reporter Kim Chandler, who witnessed the attempted execution, said Pike was ‘loudly snoring, clearly very alive’ when journalists were eventually ushered out.

Pike was then rushed from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville to a nearby hospital.

‘This failed attempt is the worst we’ve ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era,’ Death Penalty Information Center executive director Robin Maher said.

Pike’s attorneys are now demanding Lee commute her death sentence, arguing she has already endured an attempted execution.

Sutton, meanwhile, has unexpectedly been spared from facing Tennessee’s execution team – at least for now.

He and his uncle James Dellinger were sentenced to death over the killings of Griffin, 24, and Branam, 34.

Griffin was found shot in the head near Little River on February 24, 1992. Five days later, Branam’s body was discovered inside her burned-out vehicle.

Dellinger died of natural causes on death row in 2023 at age 71.

Sutton has maintained that he did not commit the murders, and his lawyers have stepped up efforts to stop his execution as the December date approaches.

‘Prosecutors never established a motive for Sutton to kill Griffin, and they offered no physical evidence connecting Sutton to the crime,’ his attorney has said.

His legal team has also described the case as ‘riddled with errors’ and has sought an evaluation to determine whether Sutton has an intellectual disability.

The Supreme Court has ruled that people with intellectual disabilities cannot constitutionally be executed.

A judge ordered Sutton to undergo an evaluation, while a decision remains pending over whether evidence concerning the claim will be heard.

But the latest delay has brought renewed anguish for Griffin and Branam’s relatives, who have spent decades waiting for the sentence to be carried out.

‘I just wish they did life without parole so we don’t have to sit here and go through this every so often,’ a member of the victims’ family tearfully told WBIR.

‘But back then we wanted the death sentence for them because of what they’ve done, and now we still have to live it.’

Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada announced his resignation on Saturday, saying that stepping aside was ‘in the best interests’ of Tennessee and describing the investigation into the procedure as ‘entirely appropriate and necessary.’

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Christa Pike’s botched execution saves other death row killer