Tennessee's failed attempt to lethally inject 30-year death row inmate Christa Pike Wednesday evening has not only put her execution in jeopardy, it may lead to the state taking capital punishment off the table altogether, according to the former Knoxville police chief who oversaw her arrest in the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995."I'll be surprised if there are any executions in Tennessee in the near term, if again, ever," Phil Keith, who led Knoxville's police department from 1988 until 2004, told Fox News Digital.Pike attracted national attention in the days before her scheduled execution on Sept.30 with a last-minute appeal, a petition for clemency and requests for alternate modes of capital punishment and a team of all-female executioners.
Then the botched attempts to lethally inject her became the dominant story.CHRISTA PIKE'S ATTORNEYS SAY SHE'S IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER BOTCHED LETHAL INJECTIONSAn undated portrait photograph of Colleen Slemmer provided by her mother.(May Martinez/Special to the News Sentinel)All of that took attention away from the victim, Keith said."Why don't we talk about Colleen's potential future, about her life, you know, do a deep dive on her family, talk about what she was trying to do?" he asked during an interview with Fox News Digital Thursday.WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT PENTOBARBITAL AFTER DEATH ROW INMATE SURVIVES 2 LETHAL INJECTION DOSESPike and Slemmer met in a vocational school for youths from difficult backgrounds, the Job Corps Center, he explained.
And while Pike exhibited signs of a career criminal, Slemmer was a teen who kept out of trouble and was focused on improving her circumstances, he said.Christa Gail Pike is seen during her trial for the murder of Colleen A.Slemmer March 18, 1996, in Knox County Criminal Court.
(USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON X"She was a bright young woman," he said."She had interest in computers.
She was applying herself there.She was clearly a...