Worst botched Death Row executions after Christa Pike horror – head on hearth to leaking blood
Christa Pike is the latest in a long line of Death Row killers to suffer a botched execution. She was set to be the first woman to be executed in the southern US state of Tennessee in 200 years on Wednesday.
But the convicted murderer was rushed to hospital after surviving two lethal injections – with reports claiming she was “very clearly alive and snoring”.
Onlookers reportedly heard Pike complain about pain, a “burning” in her arm, and was repeatedly kicking her feet. Governor Bill Lee has called for a “comprehensive, third-party review” into the failed execution.
The US is one of just 53 countries that still actively use the death penalty, with execution by hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad and lethal injection still permitted.
But campaigners say the grim reality of executions has been thrust back into the spotlight by the string of abandoned killings. Here the Daily Star rounds up the most gruesome and painful botched executions
Tony Carruthers
Tony Carruthers(Image: Tennessee Department of Correcti)
The state of Tennessee was forced to call off the execution of Tony Carruthers in May after the medical team spent an extended period attempting to comply with execution protocols. While they successfully managed to establish a primary IV line, they failed to locate a suitable second vein to insert the mandatory backup line.
An attempt to insert a deeper central line was also unsuccessful, prompting Governor Bill Lee to issue a temporary one-year reprieve.
Thomas Eugene Creech
Thomas Eugene Creech(Image: AP)
Idaho’s longest-serving death row inmate survived his scheduled execution after the medical team failed eight times to establish an IV line. In February 2024, the executioners attempted to insert the needles in multiple locations across his arms and legs before the warden officially called off the execution.
Creech was returned to his cell, joining a rare group of death row prisoners who have survived a modern execution attempt.
Kenneth Eugene Smith
Kenneth Eugene Smith(Image: Alabama Department of Correction)
Executioners in Alabama had to abort attempts to end the life of Kenneth Eugene Smith via lethal injection on November 17, 2023. Smith was on Death Row for the murder for hire of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett in 1988 for £840.
Staff attempted to insert the IV into his arm, hand, neck and chest, all without success, before it was called off for fear it couldn’t be done before the warrant for his death expired at midnight. He described the repeated attempts as “like a knife” and has entered legal proceedings against the state of Alabama.
His wife said he will need to “heal both physically and mentally”.
Eduard Delacroix
The execution of Eduard Delacroix, when the lag’s head bursts into flames, is one of the most iconic scenes in The Green Mile – but the same happened to real life Pedro Medina in Florida in 1997. The Cuban refugee was put to death by electric chair 15 years after he murdered neighbour Dorothy James.
Horrifyingly the chair malfunctioned, causing foot-long flames to shoot out of his head and burst from behind the mask over his face, filling the death chamber with smoke. Executions in Florida were delayed by almost a whole year due to this incident.
Alan Eugene Miller
Alan Eugene Miller(Image: Alabama Department of Corrections)
In 2022, officials ruled that Alan Eugene Miller could not be executed via lethal injection after a gruesome botched attempt. The former delivery driver was convicted of killing three men in a workplace shooting in the city of Birmingham in 1999.
He was tortured for over an hour after prison staff repeatedly stabbed him, unable to insert the IV. “Mr Miller could feel his veins being pushed around inside his body by needles,” his attorneys said.
“Nauseous, disoriented, confused, and fearful about whether he was about to be killed… blood was leaking from some of [his] wounds.” A judge ruled he would instead be killed by nitrogen hypoxia.
John Marion Grant
John Marion Grant(Image: Oklahoma Department of Correctio)
On October 28, 2021, members of John Marion Grant’s execution team in Oklahoma were forced to wipe vomit from his face as he threw up following the first of three drugs injected into him. Witness Sean Murphy said: “Grant’s body shook and jerked nearly two dozen times before vomit spurted from his mouth and spilled down his neck.”
Grant was on Death Row after murdering prison cafeteria worker Gay Carter in 1998 following convictions for armed robbery. Prior to the execution, lawyers argued that the state’s three-drug lethal injection protocol would cause unnecessary and excruciating pain.
Brandon Astor Jones
Brandon Astor Jones’ eyes popped open six minutes after receiving a fatal dose which took 45 minutes to administer. A witness said it was like the 72-year-old killer “fought death” on February 3, 2016, after executioners finally found a vein in his groin.
Having received his death sentence 37 years earlier for murdering shop manager Roger Tackett, Jones became the state of Georgia’s oldest Death Row resident. Jones’ executioners spent 24 minutes trying to insert an IV into his left arm, another eight minutes trying to insert it in his right arm before going back to his left.
Eventually a doctor was asked to breach medical codes and insert the IV in Jones’ groin. Six minutes later his eyes popped open.
Joseph Wood
Joseph Wood was executed in a prolonged lethal injection procedure that left him gulping for air for hours. He was sentenced over the killings of his estranged girlfriend Debra Dietz and her father in 1989.
By the time he finally died, the murderer had been injected with 750mg each of midazolam, a sedative and hydromorphone, a narcotic, 15 times the amount called for in the state’s execution protocol. An emergency appeal filed during the botched procedure stated: “He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour.
“He is still alive.” Wood’s body eventually did shutdown. Experts said the execution should have only taken 10 minutes.
Dennis McGuire
Dennis McGuire(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
Dennis McGuire reacted disturbingly to his fatal doses of hydromorphone and midazolam in Ohio on January 16, 2014. According to a lawsuit, McGuire spent 25 minutes suffering “repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling and arching his back”.
His stomach was heaving and his fist was clenched in what “looked and sounded as though he was suffocating”. McGuire was on Death Row after he raped and murdered Joy Stewart on February 11, 1989.
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