THE BOTCHED execution of Christa Pike has saved death row killer Gary Wayne Sutton weeks before his own lethal injection.
50, is under guard in hospital and remains critically ill after surviving two lethal injections in Tennessee on Wednesday.
She remains on a ventilator after she was due to become the to be executed in the state.
Instead, she was left thrashing on a gurney saying she felt like her body would explode after staff struggled to find a vein and used at least seven needles to deliver the two fatal doses of pentobarbital.
She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her whom she with then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp before taking a piece of her skull as a souvenir.
What comes next remains unclear, as Dr Joel Zivot – a medical advisor to Pike’s legal team – told The US Sun there are situations where an inmate is took sick to be put to death.
Meanwhile, fellow Tennessee death row inmate Gary Wayne Sutton and his supporters have breathed a sigh of relief as his execution scheduled for December has been halted.
Governor Bill Lee suspended all remaining state executions following Pike’s ordeal.
Sutton, 57, has spent over three decades on death row for the 1992 murders of siblings Tommy Griffin, 24, and Connie Branam, 34.
Both he and his uncle James Dellinger, were handed death sentences after Griffin was found shot in the head near Little River on February 24, 1992.
Five days later, Branam’s body was found inside her burned-out car as Griffin’s family claimed there had been a feud between them and the Suttons before the murders.
Dellinger, 71, died of natural causes on death row in 2023.
Sutton has always maintained his innocence in the case, and as his execution date of December 3, 2026, approached, his team made numerous attempts to have him pardoned.
Some supporters, such as those on the Justice for Gary Wayne Sutton website have claimed that there is no evidence connecting him to the crimes and no motive.
This includes the fact that evidence given by a medical examiner at trial was later discredited and he was stripped of his license.
Sutton’s attorney has said that the case is “riddled with errors” and also claimed that Dellinger was abusive and controlling toward her client both in his youth and in prison.
“Prosecutors never established a motive for Sutton to kill Griffin, and they offered no physical evidence connecting Sutton to the crime,” the attorney said in the statement.
Meanwhile, his legal team also filed a motion earlier this year to have him evaluated for intellectual disability, which would make him exempt from execution under a supreme court ruling.
A judge ordered his evaluation and a decision is pending with the state supreme court on if a judge will hear evidence regarding the disability claim.
After learning that his execution had been paused, the family of Sutton’s victims have tearfully told NBC News affiliate WBIR , “I just wish they did life without parole so we don’t have to sit here and go through this every so often.
“But back then we wanted the death sentence for them because of what they’ve done and now we still have to live it.”
Following the suspension of executions in the state, Sutton’s legal team said: “This news gives us little joy, because nobody should be forced to suffer the way did this week and Tony Carruthers did in May.”
“Still, we are relieved that Governor Lee is taking the deep problems with the state’s execution protocols seriously, and we are thankful that Gary’s execution has been paused.”
Carruthers’ case was another botched execution in Tennessee, which took place in May 2026.
Mark Fowler, the same doctor who administered Pike’s injections, despite trying repeatedly for over an hour.
“According to counsel for Mr. Carruthers, execution team members punctured him more than a dozen times while repeatedly attempting to establish an IV line before the execution was stopped,” the Death Penalty Information Center said at the time.
“Maria DeLiberato, one of Mr. Carruthers’ attorneys who was in the execution chamber, said she saw Mr. Carruthers ‘wincing and groaning’ while officials attempted to find a vein, calling it ‘horrible’ to watch.”
The ordeal left him partially paralyzed after suffering a stroke, his sister has claimed in a lawsuit where she accused officials of torturous malpractice.
Carruthers, Pike, and Sutton were the only three executions scheduled in 2026 in Tennessee.
The state’s 37 other death row inmates are all awaiting later execution dates.
Governor Lee has ordered a “comprehensive, third-party review” following Pike’s execution and no more death row inmates will be subject to lethal injections while he holds the post which ends in January.
Meanwhile, Tennessee’s Department of Corrections commissioner Frank Strada following the error.
He said stepping aside was “in the best interests” of the state and called the probe into the disastrous procedure “entirely appropriate and necessary”.
