What it's like to witness a botched execution

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Steven Hale didn’t think to wear a watch when he left home the morning of September 30th.

Hale was headed for Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, a local prison in Nashville, to serve as a media witness to the 10am scheduled execution of Christa Pike. As someone who’d witnessed executions before, he was prepared for the mental enormity of it all. What he couldn’t have anticipated was that he’d end up sitting in the execution witness room some 12 hours later in the pitch black with no idea what time it was, while on the other side of a window, Pike refused to die.

This particular execution already had outsized attention because Pike was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years; and the gruesome details of her murder of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer have continued to attract fascination three decades later. Hale, a criminal justice reporter for The Nashville Banner and the author of the 2024 book “Death Welcomes You: Visiting Hours in the Shadow of the Execution Chamber,” had been present earlier this year when the state failed to successfully carry out the execution of Tony Carruthers, another person on death row. But he didn’t anticipate the same thing happening again—or worse.

No person on death row has ever survived a lethal injection, let alone two injections. That is, until Christa Pike. Last week, the now 50-year-old shocked the world by surviving two doses of pentobarbital after what her lawyers said was a failure by the prison’s medical staff to properly insert her IV line. She was then rushed to a hospital, and as of Thursday, was talking and walking. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has called off executions in the state for the remainder of the year, implying they won’t try to kill Pike again before 2027. But what comes after that remains to be seen. Lee could commute her sentence, but if he doesn’t, the winner of the November gubernatorial election will have the power next year to decide Pike’s fate. (Frontrunner and current Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn has indicated her desire to use the electric chair.)

Pike’s ordeal was a first-of-its-kind occurrence, and Hale has had a front row seat to it all. The Handbasket spoke with him by phone on Wednesday afternoon to better understand just what happened at the prison that day. We talked about the unfathomable sights and sounds of the execution chamber, what is meant by the peculiar tradition of setting down a small rock inside the room, and what it was like witnessing something that has literally never happened before.

I had one million questions for Hale, so our conversation ended up being a great deal longer than expected. Below you’ll find a YouTube link with the full audio of our discussion, and below that is a text version that has been edited for length and clarity. 

MARISA KABAS, THE HANDBASKET: How many people have you witnessed being executed?

STEVEN HALE, THE NASHVILLE BANNER: So this was my fifth execution where I've been a media witness in Tennessee—I guess only three of those have ended with a person actually being killed. Oddly enough, I was a witness at the Tony Carruthers execution in May here, which was called off because of issues placing IV lines. And then of course this recent one. So five times, but two of them have been rather unusual.

KABAS: Can you give a brief synopsis of what happened with Tony Carruthers and what you saw then?

HALE: So in that case, we didn't end up really seeing anything. The way the process works here in Tennessee is they place an IV if it's a lethal injection. We also have the electric chair, as you might know. In both cases, the preparation happens before the curtain is open, so we don't see them being strapped onto the gurney or the IVs being placed. 

So in the case of Tony Carruthers, we were brought into the witness room, and to help people visualize it, it's a small room with just a handful of chairs. There are usually seven media witnesses and a few prison officials, and then there's a large window that you're facing, and there's a curtain over that window. And when they're ready to carry out the execution, they open the curtain. But in this case, we were brought into the witness room and we could just hear on the other side of the window the preparation going on. In that case, we ended up hearing Mr. Carruthers kind of groaning in pain, and we heard the attorney that was with him questioning the doctor about his qualifications. We heard some of this back and forth, and we could tell they were having issues. But we of course didn't know what they were until later. And then after a while of that, we were let out.

KABAS: Was it almost more disturbing to just hear it and have to fill in the blanks of what was going on behind the curtain?

HALE: It's interesting that you say that because I have told people in the past it's the sounds of these things have really stuck with me—which I think was surprising to me. I don't know, maybe it's surprising to other people too, because everyone usually asks what it's like to see it, and that's obviously its own thing. But yes, I do think there's something unsettling about hearing it, and just not knowing the full details of what you're hearing until later, which is of course a big frustration about trying to report on this. The way the death penalty works in general, because there's so much secrecy and not a lot of official information from the state, you're always trying to piece things together.

KABAS: Speaking of having to fill in the blanks, let’s fast forward to September 30th, the day of Christa Pike's scheduled execution. When you woke up that morning, how did you expect the date to go?

HALE: This execution, more than others I've covered, was already getting a lot of attention. Christa Pike was going to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, and less than two dozen women have been executed in the modern era of the death penalty in the United States. So, I was already getting some more media requests. I did an interview for a TV hit in my car that morning, which was unusual for me. Another thing that I guess gives people context is these executions used to happen at night here in Tennessee. They used to do them quite late at night, closer to midnight or just after midnight. Then they used to do them at seven [PM], and now they do them at 10 o'clock [AM.] You get up in the morning and go, so that kind of just changes the mindset of it too.

Already there was some—I don't know if anxiety is the right word—anticipation, because I had done a lot of reporting on this case and then there had been a lot of outside interest in it. I certainly did not expect it to go anything like what it did.

KABAS: The stay of execution was announced about an hour before it was scheduled to begin. How did you find out that happened?

HALE: We were kind of milling around outside, just getting ready. I was speaking to Emily Cochran, who's a reporter based here for the New York Times. It was the first time we had met in person, so we introduced ourselves and we were just kind of talking. And then she got the email and said, "Have you seen this?” And I looked and had the same email from Christa Pike's defense team announcing that the court had issued this stay. So of course that news quickly spread, and we were all caught off guard by it because the state supreme court, the U.S. Supreme Court and the governor had denied her already in terms of her appeals or her clemency. So it took us a little bit to understand what was even happening. It turned out her attorneys had filed an appeal citing a different issue. So that was surprising because of the timing, but also because we were all kind of under the assumption that she was out of options.

KABAS: So you found out that the stay had been granted, and then you waited nine hours between that news and finding out that the execution was moving forward. What did you do for those nine hours?

 At first, when the stay was granted, the prison officials came to me and the other media witnesses and they said “we're going to take you inside because we don't know what's going to happen with the courts, but we want to be ready.” So we went through the security at the front of the prison, and they took us to a conference room which normally is used for parole hearings. And that is where we waited for a couple of hours. 

We don't have our phones once we go inside the prison, so the only information we had was from the communications director for the Department of Corrections. But she was doing the same thing we would have been doing, which is just scrolling on our phones, or refreshing the Supreme Court website, or checking news websites to see if anything happened. Then maybe around one o'clock, they said, "Well, we'll take you back outside. You can talk to your colleagues out there. You can check your phones, check in with people if you need to.” At this point, a lot of us were suddenly realizing that we were maybe going to be at the prison the rest of the day and into the night, because we had been told that the state had until midnight to carry out this execution or they would have to set a new date. So we started asking amongst ourselves, like, "Oh man, I might need to call my spouse and make sure kids pick up is okay because it's going to be different than we planned,” and just normal logistical stuff because the day was really changing.

KABAS: So you’re just looking at each other like what's happening?

HALE: It's a strange scene. I mean, obviously, a few of us knew each other, folks who are other reporters that were here locally. Some of them were people that I've witnessed executions with before. And then the state always has a few witness spots for reporters from the jurisdiction where the original trial was. So in this case, there were some reporters from Knoxville. Obviously you're talking about the case, you're talking about what you think might happen. But we were in there long enough that you start—it's not exactly small talk in that context, but you're kind of just talking about whether it's other news that's going on or other things you've worked on, and then occasionally asking the prison staff, like, do we know anything? So it's a weird scene for sure. 

And then when we came out, the rest of the reporters that aren't inside the prison are waiting under this tent in the parking lot for what will eventually be a press conference after the execution. I think at first they thought maybe something would happen, or maybe we knew something, and so we had to tell them we don't know anything. We thought maybe they would know something, and they didn't either. It turns out we were all still waiting for the Supreme Court.

KABAS: I imagine they said you couldn't leave the conference room when you were inside.

HALE: Oh yeah. We definitely couldn't leave. It was a little tense, I assume because of that, but also just because you're uncertain. You don't know what's going to happen. So we knew that at any moment they might come in and say, "All right, it's off. This isn't happening. The Supreme Court called it off.” Or “Okay, we're taking you to the execution chamber now.” So you're just kind of waiting there. 

KABAS: So already it was a bit of an unprecedented situation.

HALE: It certainly was for me. I mean, there have obviously been other executions and cases where there's last minute court action, legal fighting that delays things, and during the first Trump term there was a run of federal executions where they were often dragging on late into the night with court stuff. But yeah, it was unusual pretty much from the moment we arrived at the prison because the stay came in and then everything just got progressively weirder from there.

KABAS So you were brought back inside at some point in the afternoon. What happened next?

HALE: So they bring us back to that same conference room where we ended up waiting for probably four or five more hours, and at some point they brought in a medium Domino's pizza.

At one point, one of the reporters who was also a witness asked the prison officials about Christa Pike's status, like where was she, and had she eaten, and what was her situation, because she had passed on her final meal. And it turns out she actually asked for the $20 that's allotted for that meal to be used to buy pizza for people living on the streets in downtown Nashville, which some of the advocates in town later did. One of the prison officials informed us that she had been drinking water and Gatorade, and also had eaten lunch, and maybe was going to eat dinner.

I want to say it was a little before six o'clock local time when we had looked at the communications director and said, what's it looking like? Do you know anything? And she went out of the room and was going to ask. And she came back in and she said “it's a go.” The Supreme Court had lifted the stay. She sat down and read us the order from her phone. And then we waited a little longer in that room, but eventually they got us up and took us into the witness room near the execution chamber that I was describing earlier.

KABAS: I was reading another account, one written by Catherine Sweeney, about her experience as a media witness that day, and so that gave me a bit of a sense of how things went. I understand that you went into the witness room, and the curtain was closed and you couldn't even see what time it was. Normally this is a few minute process, but it went on for 45 minutes. What was happening in the witness room?

HALE: We ended up sitting there for close to an hour, and it was similar to the Tony Carruthers execution in the sense that we could hear what we presumed to be the preparation going on behind the window. We heard what we thought was the sound of Christa Pike crying. I mean, we couldn't be sure that it was her, but we heard the sound of a woman crying. We assumed it must be her. Just from knowing the protocol, we knew that they must have been getting the IVs placed—and that did go on for quite a long time. And we're all leaning forward, trying to hear anything we can. You hear voices, but you don't know what they're saying. You hear sounds, and you're quickly making note of them, but you also know that you only have part of the context. We found out later from her attorneys that they spent that hour struggling to get an IV line established.

KABAS: And all you have with you is a paper and pen?

HALE: Yes, they give us a notebook, and that's all you have with you. Luckily, one of the reporters who was with us, John North from Knoxville, he had what he jokingly referred to as a $16 Timex watch. You can't bring a smartwatch, but they let him wear his because it can't do anything. So that turned out to be crucial, because even after the lights were off, and in some of the times later in the night when the curtain was closed and we didn't have a clock, he was able to tell us what time it was.

KABAS: Did it even occur to you to wear an analog watch?

HALE: It did not. I don't know if and when I'll be in this situation again, but it will now.

KABAS: At what point did you realize something had likely gone terribly wrong?

HALE: I think it was Catherine [Sweeney] who turned and said, “do we think something's gone wrong?” because it was taking so long for them to even open the curtain. But then the mic check happens and they turn the light off and open the curtain. We could see Christa Pike and her spiritual advisor in the room with her and two prison officials. At that point it was like, okay, well, it appears that this is moving forward. 

KABAS: Was there a point where it went from feeling like you were a media witness to feeling like just a human being who was part of an unprecedented situation?

HALE: I think the first time that I thought, okay, this is something that I'm going to be reporting on and talking about longer than other executions I've witnessed, was definitely the first time they closed the curtain and she was still alive. Because we knew that wasn't typical. Usually, in the other executions I've witnessed when they close the curtain, from our vantage point it appears like the person is likely dead. Then they check and declare the time of death. So, I've never had the experience of them closing the curtain and me wondering if the person was dead. In this case, we could hear Christa Pike still breathing and making this snoring sound, basically struggling to breathe.

KABAS: Did you know when they started to administer the drug?

HALE: There is no official announcement or signal that they're starting to administer the drugs. The only signal we get—I'm sure you read in Catherine's report, this weird detail-

KABAS: The rock. 

HALE: Yes, it's very strange. It's like a small rock; almost looks like it would be a paperweight. A hand wearing a purple latex glove reaches out from this little door in the wall, sets this little rock on a shelf, and our understanding is that that is the signal to the prison officials in the execution chamber that all the drugs have been administered. That they pushed the whole dose. And from there, there is typically about a five-minute waiting period, and then they close the curtain and check for a pulse and declare death. 

Christa Pike was definitely talking and moving on the gurney more than I had seen or heard about before. I can't say for sure if that's related to the fact that the drug wasn't going fully in her bloodstream, but I did note that at the time, like man, she's talking a lot and continued talking longer than I expected her to. Even after that rock came out, she was talking to her spiritual advisor, and we were all surprised by that.

KABAS: And so typically, by the time the curtain is closed after the five-minute waiting period, the person would be unconscious?

HALE: Yes, and again, obviously we can't say for sure, but in my past experience and what I understand from other colleagues who have witnessed other lethal injections, it’s not the kind of situation where you're unsure. In this case, the curtain closed, and it caught us all off guard because she was clearly alive—there is no question.

KABAS: How much longer after that did you remain in the witness room?

HALE: They closed the curtain for the first time, and that was pretty brief. And then they opened it again, and that's when they gave a second dose of the drugs. At that point, she was no longer speaking, but she was moving some, and breathing loudly, heavily. And then the whole process repeated itself. The hand comes out, places the rock. They wait. They close the curtain again, and once again we still hear her. So we now we're just like we don't know what's going on or why it's going on, but we know she's alive and we know they've closed the curtain and we didn't know for sure at that moment, but it seemed to us that they had given her two rounds of the pentobarbital. 

We sat there in the witness room for about 15 minutes, and at this point, the lights are off, so it's basically pitch black. We're in the witness room, and the curtain is drawn, but we can just hear Christa Pike breathing and snoring behind the window. We asked on a couple of occasions why the curtains were closed and for them to be opened again because we knew she was alive. But they were basically out of protocol at that point. By which I mean they had gotten to the end of it. The protocol doesn't say what to do if you give someone two doses of the lethal injection drug and they're still alive. So we were very officially in uncharted territory. And then it was just before 9o'clock that they brought us out of the witness room and walked us outside.

I just remember us repeating to each other a few times, like, “she's still alive.” It was almost like we were trying to confirm with each other, because even after they cut the microphone and were starting to lead us out of the witness room, we could still hear her. So we were like, "She's still alive in there, right? Is that what you also heard?” And everyone's like, yeah. So yeah, talk about surreal. 

We walk out of the prison and go up to the tent where all the other media are assembled, and there's TV cameras, and some of our colleagues are there. And a couple people started to speak, and we start to try to describe what we know and what we saw. And that's when the ambulance and fire truck pulled up, which was just a surreal scene.

KABAS: Did your colleagues outside in the media have any idea that she was still alive?

HALE: So it turns out they did. And as you can imagine, they had a lot of questions, some of which we tried to answer, and some of which we had the same questions. It's very strange to have been the person closest to something and then almost feel like you have more questions for the people who are outside. But I do distinctly remember us walking out, and one of the things we were wondering is maybe they will know more than we do about what just happened. It turns out they didn't. But we were wondering if some decision had been made

KABAS: Because you were literally and figuratively in the dark.

HALE: Absolutely right. That press conference, I'm really grateful to our other colleagues who were there. Even though it was difficult to speak and try to describe things coherently in the moment, they were asking us questions and trying to clarify things because it was so all over the place. And it got interrupted by the ambulance showing up to take Christa Pike to a hospital. The ambulance left with its sirens on.

Another reporter was speaking, and then all of a sudden everyone starts pointing over to the road leading into the prison. We turn around, and this ambulance and fire truck are coming in. And of course, we kind of gathered what that was for. It was just—I don't even know what the adjective is, but to see an ambulance pulling up to the prison to take someone from the execution chamber and rush them with the sirens blaring to a hospital is just disturbing and unsettling. It's hard to get your head around.

KABAS: Probably because it just flipped the story so quickly. It went from covering an execution to covering an attempt to save someone's life. I’m sure it’s a very different mindset.

HALE: It's just unbelievable to be talking about that moment, and then know that she's apparently conscious and speaking now. Because we knew that she had been alive when we left the witness room, but I was like, how can someone possibly survive this? I thought, surely she is probably going to die on the way to the hospital. It just didn't seem possible to me that even having technically survived the lethal injection attempt that you would be able to survive afterwards. But she has.