BREAKING: “This is pretty unprecedented. None of it should have happened, and it wasn’t planned for.” A media witness describes the confusion surrounding Christa Pike’s attempted execution as an ambulance later pulls away from the Tennessee prison with its sirens on. “We can presume that there was somebody alive in that, but we don’t know.” Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Court records say Slemmer endured a 30-to-45-minute attack in which she was beaten and repeatedly cut with a box cutter and meat cleaver before her head was bashed with a rock or piece of asphalt. A pentagram was also carved into her body while she was still alive. Pike received two doses of pentobarbital, but officials were unable to complete the execution. “We just listened…snoring and making very loud breathing sounds for almost an hour.” ▻