Christa Pike execution failure spares murderer who bailed victim out just to kill him
The execution of a double murderer who bailed one of his victims out of jail only for the man to be shot dead — and then killed his sister when she went looking for him — has been put on hold after Tennessee's botched attempt to lethally inject Christa Pike for her role in the "satanic" torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995.
Gov. Bill Lee halted the death penalty across the state for the rest of the year — but there was only one scheduled, the Dec. 3 execution of convicted double murderer Gary Wayne Sutton.
His uncle and co-defendant, James Dellinger, died of natural causes on death row in 2023.
Sutton has maintained his innocence — but in separate trials, he was convicted in the murders of Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam, a brother and sister who were killed on Feb. 21 and 22, 1992.
Sutton, who months earlier had beaten up Griffin's brother, went drinking with Dellinger and Griffin at a bar called Howie's Hideaway on Feb. 21, 1992, according to court records reviewed by Fox News Digital.
After they left, they got in a fight, and Sutton and Dellinger left Griffin on the roadside. He encountered a passing driver who flagged down a police officer, according to court documents.
The responding officer reported that Griffin was "on the verge of tears" and shirtless with "scrapes and scratches" on his upper body and a cut behind is ear. Griffin claimed he had gotten into "an argument with some friends, who were not really his friends," according to court records.
He declined to give specifics and was arrested for public intoxication. Sutton and Dellinger showed up at the police station to bail him out around 8:30 p.m. and were told to come back later. They did at about 11:30 p.m., bringing a flannel shirt, according to court documents.
A half-hour later, witnesses reported hearing three gunshots in the area where his body would later be found. He'd suffered a shotgun blast to the head.
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The next day, Griffin's sister, Branam, went to Howie's Hideaway with Sutton and Dellinger. She told the server she was looking for her brother. Her body was later found in her scorched car — so badly burned that the forensic pathologist could not determine whether she had been alive when the fire started. Detectives did recover a .303 cartridge that matched a rifle found at Dellinger's home.
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Sutton's supporters have criticized the case as circumstantial. It remains unclear who shot Griffin and how exactly Branam died.
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Sutton's execution was scheduled for Dec. 3 but has been put on pause due to the state's failure to carry out Pike's death sentence last week.
Pike's botched execution was the second in Tennessee this year after executioners couldn't find a suitable vein for fellow condemned inmate Tony Carruthers in May.
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While what's next for Pike remains unclear as she is in an undisclosed hospital for treatment following two doses of lethal injection drugs that failed to kill her, Lee said Carruthers would not face execution again for at least a year after his scheduled death in May was canceled.
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Pike, who was hospitalized in critical condition, is the first person to have survived the administration of lethal injection drugs, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks capital punishment across the U.S.
In 2014, an Oklahoma inmate named Clayton Lockett initially survived the injection but died of a heart attack while still inside the chamber, according to the center.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.