Tennessee’s prison chief is resigning, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday, marking the first major leadership change since a botched execution left Christa Pike unconscious and dependent on a ventilator in a hospital.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, will leave his post this month, Lee said. Several Republican lawmakers and other elected officials had called for new leadership.
Pike’s case was the second time since May that Tennessee failed to carry out an execution after a prisoner had appeared to be only moments from death.
Lee also said former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton would oversee an examination of what went wrong in Pike’s death chamber. Stanton previously led a review after Lee halted another Tennessee execution in 2022, concluding that the state had failed to follow its own lethal-injection procedures.
Strada said in a statement that stepping aside was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while Stanton conducts the review. State officials administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital but were unable to complete Pike’s execution.
Pike, who is now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed their classmate, Colleen Slemmer, during a jealous rage in 1995. She later became one of the youngest women sentenced to death in the United States.
Strada stands by Tennessee’s execution procedures
Pike’s attorneys did not immediately respond Saturday when asked for an update on her condition. They said Friday that she remained unconscious and was on a ventilator after the failed execution, while hospital personnel worked to remove the effects of the two pentobarbital doses.
The highly unusual failure has prompted demands for answers from supporters and opponents of the death penalty alike. Lee has ordered an independent investigation and suspended future executions. Strada, however, said he believes the state “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”
Pike’s lawyers welcomed Strada’s resignation but said it “does nothing to help Christa now.”
“What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,” the four-attorney team said. “We hope the governor’s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”
Tennessee’s second failed execution since May
Pike’s attorneys said they believed malfunctioning IV lines caused the pentobarbital to enter tissue rather than flow properly into her bloodstream.
Pike cooperated fully with the execution team, even telling staff, “please try here, please try here,” as they attempted to place the lines, attorney Randy Spivey told reporters Thursday.
In May, Tennessee halted the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff inserted an IV in his right arm but could not establish a second line. Lee directed officials to wait at least one year before making another attempt.
Strada became commissioner in January 2023 after serving as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. In late 2024, he announced that Tennessee would revise its lethal-injection method and rely exclusively on pentobarbital.
The Tennessee Department of Correction says four people have been executed in the state since 2025.
Arizona executions also faced complications
Court records show that Strada was responsible for overseeing executions in Arizona when the state resumed them in 2022 after an eight-year pause.
Clarence Dixon was the first prisoner executed that year. Medical personnel struggled to locate a vein for the lethal drugs and ultimately made an incision near his groin. The execution took roughly 25 minutes.
That same year in Arizona, medical staff preparing Frank Atwood for execution initially could not locate a vein in his right arm but inserted the IV in his right hand — at Atwood’s suggestion, said Henry Brean, an Arizona Daily Star reporter who was a witness.
Strada announced Murray Hooper’s execution by lethal injection, the third in 2022. There was an unsuccessful attempt to insert an IV line in his right arm. The IV in Hooper’s leg was inserted into his femoral artery.
“When Governor Lee hired Strada to fix execution problems in Tennessee, his problematic history of executions in Arizona was well known,” said Kit Thomas, an attorney who has represented people on Tennessee’s death row.
