---
title: "Tennessee’s Execution Doctor Has Now Been at Two Failed Lethal Injections"
description: "Dr. Mark Fowler, paid $3,000 per execution, says the doctor only declares death, but Tennessee’s protocol gave him a larger job."
author: "rews special report"
published: 2026-08-08T14:00:47Z
modified: 2026-10-11T23:41:15Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/tennessee-s-execution-doctor-has-now-been-at-two-failed-leth-c1f009
language: en
type: special report
tags: ["law", "death-penalty", "ethics", "prison", "medicine", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Tennessee’s Execution Doctor Has Now Been at Two Failed Lethal Injections

*Dr. Mark Fowler, paid $3,000 per execution, says the doctor only declares death, but Tennessee’s protocol gave him a larger job.*

Special report · By rews special report · August 8, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/tennessee-s-execution-doctor-has-now-been-at-two-failed-leth-c1f009

## In brief

- Dr. Mark Fowler was the physician at Tennessee’s failed executions of Tony Carruthers on May 21 and Christa Pike on Sept. 30
- Fowler is paid $3,000 per execution and testified that he last placed a central line around 2013
- The American Medical Association has barred doctors from executions since 1980, including starting IVs and declaring death
- Fowler told NPR the doctor only declares death, though Tennessee’s protocol also assigns him central lines
- Tennessee paused executions through 2026 while former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton reviews the Pike attempt

On Sept. 30, Tennessee’s contract execution physician, Dr. Mark Walton Fowler, oversaw the lethal injection of Christa Pike, who took two doses of pentobarbital and kept breathing, and who left Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville in an ambulance. It was the second execution this year that the state could not finish with the same doctor on duty.

Dr. Fowler, 69, is one of very few execution doctors in the United States whose name is public. The record built around him in a deposition, court filings and his own brief interviews is the most detailed look in years at who does this work and what the state asks of them. He is paid $3,000 an execution. By his own sworn account, he last placed a central line around 2013, the procedure Tennessee’s protocol assigns him when ordinary IVs fail, and he holds no hospital privileges. In September he told NPR that the doctor at an execution only declares the person dead.

The American Medical Association has told physicians since 1980 that they must not take part in executions at all. Tennessee and other death penalty states responded with secrecy laws and private contracts, and the doctors who signed on were the ones willing to break with their profession. Executions in Tennessee are now halted through the end of the year, the corrections commissioner is resigning and a former federal prosecutor is reviewing the Pike attempt. Whether a doctor belongs in the chamber at all has become part of that argument. The sharpest case for keeping one there comes from a scholar who has spent years counting botched executions.

![A vintage-style illustration shows a stethoscope draped through prison bars above a green padded table with restraining straps.](https://rews.cc/img/82fd5250130e560b825c8bb7047aa1115860ffb2.webp)

## A name said aloud

Dr. Fowler’s anonymity ended on Aug. 5, 2025. Riverbend’s warden, Kenneth Nelsen, said his name aloud while announcing the death of Byron Black, 69, who had been convicted of killing his girlfriend, Angela Clay, and her two young daughters in 1988. Media witnesses said Mr. Black told his spiritual adviser “it hurts so bad” after the pentobarbital went in, and his lawyer, Kelley Henry, said he had been “tortured,” [the Nashville Banner reported](https://nashvillebanner.com/2025/08/05/byron-black-execution-lethal-injection-tennessee/). Tennessee’s public records law makes the identity of anyone directly involved in carrying out a death sentence confidential. That is why the warden’s slip mattered.

His path to the gurney was unusual. As [Ed Pilkington reported in The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/08/tennessee-doctor-executions-death-penalty) in August, Dr. Fowler spent three years as a public defender and represented several capital defendants, none of whom was sentenced to death. Around 1994 he retrained at the University of Tennessee’s medical college in Memphis, graduating in 1999. He worked about a decade in emergency rooms, then in family practice, and now earns most of his income from medical directorships at weight-loss and aesthetic clinics and a wound-care center. He testified that a friend, the state’s previous execution doctor, asked him in 2018 to come along to an execution so he could take over when the friend retired.

The deposition, taken in October 2025 by lawyers challenging Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, put a price on the work: $3,000 per execution, against the $15,000 Oklahoma pays and the $18,000 Arizona pays, according to The Guardian. Asked about the money, he bristled.

> I don’t wish to read about myself in the newspaper saying, ‘This bloodthirsty coward doctor gets money for doing this.’ I get paid for the time and effort of going.
>
> — Dr. Mark Fowler, Tennessee’s execution physician, in his October 2025 deposition, [theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/08/tennessee-doctor-executions-death-penalty)

He also writes opinion columns for The Union City Daily Messenger, which the conservative Patriot Post reprints. In a June 2025 column he wrote that two of his old public defense cases were ones where the death penalty “was surely warranted,” and in the same piece he wrote that overzealous prosecutors, “corrupt police” and “prosecution-oriented judges” could leave constitutional protections “watered down to nothing.” When The Guardian reached him by phone, he called his role “a private situation” and said, “The lawyers are churning up a lot of nonsense, and I don’t want to discuss it.”

## May 21 at Riverbend

Tony Carruthers, 57, was strapped down on May 21 to be executed for the 1994 killings of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson and Frederick Tucker in Memphis. No forensic evidence ties him to the crime, and he has always said he is innocent, [according to the Death Penalty Information Center](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/tennessees-botched-execution-of-tony-carruthers-raises-questions-about-medical-qualifications-among-concerns-with-innocence-and-due-process). The Department of Correction said its staff [quickly placed a primary IV](https://www.newschannel5.com/news/tennessee-pauses-tony-carruthers-execution-after-iv-issue) but could not set the backup line the protocol requires.

![An engraving shows a padded table with broad black restraint straps, a large metal buckle, and green tubing with metal connectors.](https://rews.cc/img/bcacff0f77c7aaea07a43eaa81a81aa2024664f5.webp)

That is where Dr. Fowler came in. Under the protocol, he places a central line, a catheter threaded into a large vein beneath the collarbone, if peripheral access fails, and he determines death at the end. Maria DeLiberato, a senior counsel with the A.C.L.U.’s capital punishment project who stood a few feet away, said he took charge as soon as he entered, ordered the prisoner’s socks removed and probed his left foot for about 15 minutes before turning to the collarbone. Before numbing the skin, he asked the IV team whether “the patient” was allergic to lidocaine.

Ms. DeLiberato knew from the deposition that his last central line was about 13 years earlier, and she told the warden he wasn’t qualified. “Yes, I am qualified,” Dr. Fowler said. The warden told him, “Doctor, do your job.” Ms. DeLiberato described Mr. Carruthers “moaning and groaning in a guttural way,” with blood seeping from the puncture, through 16 minutes of attempts while he said, “it hurts, it hurts.” Amy Harwell, an assistant federal defender, said he was punctured more than a dozen times.

Accounts of the length differ. The Guardian put the needle attempts at an hour and 15 minutes, and the Memphis Flyer reported that the governor’s office stopped the attempt about 90 minutes after it began. Gov. Bill Lee, who had said he would not intervene, granted a one-year reprieve.

Dr. Fowler gave one interview afterward, [to NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-execution-botched-death-penalty-lethal-injection-rcna347362). “Every attempt was made to minimize the defendant’s discomfort,” he said. “No one wants Carruthers to suffer.”

[![Doctor in failed TN execution gives exclusive interview to NBC](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0QKO_bt5h0I/hqdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QKO_bt5h0I)

A television news report on Dr. Fowler’s interview with NBC News after the failed Carruthers execution. Video: WBIR Channel 10 · YouTube

In mid-July, Mr. Carruthers’ sister, Tonya Hervey, filed a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Health listing five ethics violations, [the Memphis Flyer reported](https://www.memphisflyer.com/complaint-questions-qualifications-of-tennessees-execution-doctor/). The first was taking part in an execution at all. The others were injecting lidocaine without checking for an allergy, attempting a central line he was not qualified to place, starting it before her brother was properly numbed and searching for a vein for nearly an hour while he was in visible distress. The family believes he had a stroke, and the complaint describes paralysis on his right side. No public discipline has been announced.

## Secrecy and Darrell Hines

Darrell Hines, 65, was next. Strokes in December 2025 and January 2026 had left him partially paralyzed, and his lawyers argued that putting Dr. Fowler back in the chamber risked a repeat of May. On July 17, a Davidson County chancellor ordered the state to say whether the doctor would take part. In early August the Tennessee Supreme Court [effectively canceled that order](https://newschannel9.com/news/local/tennessee-supreme-court-blocks-order-to-reveal-execution-physician-identity-mark-fowler-tennessee-department-of-correction-davidson-county-chancery-court-darrell-hines-tony-carruthers-legal-request), refusing to force disclosure, to appoint a neutral party to examine the claim or to stay the execution.

Kit Thomas, deputy chief of Nashville’s capital habeas unit and one of Mr. Hines’s lawyers, said the case had given a “peek behind the curtain” at a department relying on “unqualified physicians” willing to kill people “for $3,000 a pop.” The secrecy didn’t last. On Aug. 14, Dr. Fowler himself told Fox 17 in Nashville that he had been the physician at both the Carruthers attempt and the Hines execution, and that he would oversee Ms. Pike’s.

> ⚖️ The doctor who oversaw a failed Tennessee execution will also oversee Christa Pike’s scheduled execution.
>
> Dr. Mark Walton Fowler confirmed to FOX 17 News that he served as the physician during Tony Carruthers’ execution attempt and also during the Aug. 13 execution of Darrell…
>
> — **FoxNashville** @FOXNashville on X · [August 16, 2026](https://x.com/FOXNashville/status/2089034512143417493)

Mr. Hines, condemned for the 1985 killing of Catherine Jenkins, 54, a motel housekeeper in Kingston Springs, died on Aug. 13. His IV lines were in place before the curtains opened, and a few minutes later he let out a loud groan and a coughing sound before his breathing stopped, [WKMS reported](https://www.wkms.org/criminal-justice/2026-08-13/tennessee-executes-anthony-darrell-hines). In a statement to Fox 17, Dr. Fowler said, “Inmates condemned to die are treated with utmost courtesy, respect and professionalism by staff.”

## Sept. 30

Ms. Pike, 50, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was to die for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, 19, a classmate, in Knoxville. For months her lawyers had argued that a platelet disorder and poor veins would make a central line likely and that the Carruthers attempt showed Dr. Fowler could not place one, [WSMV reported](https://www.wsmv.com/2026/08/14/doctor-botched-lethal-injection-says-he-will-now-oversee-execution-only-woman-tns-death-row-heres-what-we-know/). After three days of hearings in August, Senior Judge Mark Ward found her rights would not be violated. The Sixth Circuit stayed the execution about an hour before it was to begin, and that evening the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 to let it go ahead.

![A woodcut-style illustration shows a large judge’s gavel in a columned courthouse, with an open doorway revealing a red room and a hand on the floor.](https://rews.cc/img/2e00b22b39b422baf8615d78242d3f369a2a3c2b.webp)

Her lawyers said seven needles went into her left arm alone. Witnesses heard her say, “The vein in my arm feels like it’s about to bust.” She received two doses of pentobarbital, four syringes in all, and one media witness said heavy snoring was the best description of the sounds she made. In an [emergency motion](https://www.wctv.tv/2026/10/01/doctor-christa-pike-execution-tied-earlier-botched-lethal-injection/) that night, her lawyers said she still had a heartbeat. At Vanderbilt University Medical Center she was put on a ventilator, both arms swollen, burned and blistered, [according to WSMV](https://www.wsmv.com/2026/10/07/christa-pike-live-updates-what-know-she-regains-consciousness-judge-orders-state-preserve-evidence-failed-execution/).

Dr. Neil Winawer, who teaches at Emory University School of Medicine, [told Fox 5 Atlanta](https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/atlanta-doctor-breaks-down-christa-pikes-failed-tennessee-execution) that the IV appeared to have infiltrated, leaking the caustic drug out of the vein to pool in the tissue of her arm, a sequence no one has confirmed. The Death Penalty Information Center [wrote](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/tennessee-botches-another-execution-despite-earlier-warnings-from-attorneys-christa-pike-was-alive-hours-after-attempt-began) that no one in the modern era had survived once lethal injection drugs were actually given. Seven earlier survivors were spared because no IV could be set.

What Dr. Fowler did that night is not fully clear. WSMV reported that he administered the doses, WVLT reported that he oversaw the procedure and [Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/christa-pike-execution-doctor-previously-botched-lethal-injection-12511013) wrote that his exact role remained unknown. He declined to comment to NBC News. Ms. Pike woke on Oct. 6, a day after her lawyers had been told she was brain-dead, and she [returned to prison on Oct. 10](https://rews.cc/a/christa-pike-who-survived-two-lethal-doses-is-back-in-her-te-57f0b1).

[![Doctor in Tony Carruthers' botched execution administered Christa Pike's failed lethal injection](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0_diR_rsXHE/hqdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_diR_rsXHE)

A local television report on the doctor from the Carruthers attempt being present for Christa Pike’s failed lethal injection. Video: WSMV 4 Nashville · YouTube

## A ban since 1980

The A.M.A. set its rule two years before Texas executed Charles Brooks in 1982, the country’s first lethal injection: “A physician must not participate in a legally authorized execution.” The current version, [Opinion 9.7.3 of the association’s ethics code](https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/capital-punishment), counts selecting injection sites, starting IV lines, supervising the drugs, monitoring vital signs and declaring death as participation.

At times the rule has stopped executions. In February 2006, the two anesthesiologists a federal judge required at San Quentin for the execution of Michael Morales withdrew after an appeals court suggested they might have to intervene if he showed signs of pain, which they said “would clearly be medically unethical,” [NPR reported](https://www.npr.org/2006/02/21/5226110/execution-delayed-by-doctors-refusal-to-participate). The postponement halted executions in California. In North Carolina, a 2007 medical board policy threatening discipline produced a de facto moratorium until the state Supreme Court ruled 4 to 3 in May 2009 that the board [could not discipline doctors](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/nc-supreme-court/1407529.html) for taking part in an execution alone. In 2010 the American Board of Anesthesiology began revoking certification for members who take part, declaring that “Anesthesiologists are healers, not executioners,” and the pharmacists’ and nurses’ associations [adopted their own bans](https://lethalinjectioninfo.org/professional-associations-policies/) in 2015 and 2016.

In [The New England Journal of Medicine](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp068042) in March 2006, Dr. Atul Gawande interviewed four physicians and a nurse who had taken part in executions and wrote that all had acted against the long-standing principles of their professions. Corinna Barrett Lain, a former Virginia prosecutor who teaches law at the University of Richmond, calls the doctors who still take part “dissenters” in her 2025 book, *Secrets of the Killing State*. Speaking to [CNN](https://krdo.com/health/cnn-health/2026/10/02/why-botched-lethal-injections-are-becoming-more-common/), she called lethal injection a “Frankenstein version of the medical model,” a “highly delicate, error-prone procedure that is done by people who are not trained.” Tennessee is one of 17 states whose laws require doctors to play some role.

## What the doctor says he does

Dr. Fowler’s own account of the job is narrower than the record. He spoke by phone on Sept. 24, six days before the Pike execution, to Catherine Sweeney of WPLN [for a story published by NPR and KFF Health News](https://kffhealthnews.org/health-industry/death-penalty-lethal-injection-execution-doctors-tennessee-carruthers-christa-pike/), and offered no further comment.

> the doctor does not participate in the execution. The only thing the doctor does is declare the person dead.
>
> — Dr. Mark Fowler, Tennessee’s execution physician, speaking to NPR, [kffhealthnews.org](https://kffhealthnews.org/health-industry/death-penalty-lethal-injection-execution-doctors-tennessee-carruthers-christa-pike/)

The protocol gives the physician two tasks, the central line and the determination of death. In his deposition, Dr. Fowler said he had not known the central line could be one of his duties. On May 21, the central line was the reason he was summoned to the gurney. And the A.M.A. lists declaring death as participation too, so even his narrow version puts him outside his profession’s code.

Prisoners’ lawyers have leaned on two other admissions from the deposition. He estimated he had placed a dozen or more central lines in his career, one of which left a guide wire in a patient’s “carotid vein,” and he holds no current hospital privileges, which means no hospital authorizes him to do such procedures. “Placing a central line is not just sticking a needle in a person’s arm,” said Dr. John Greer, a retired Nashville hematologist who warned that mistakes can collapse a lung or cause heavy bleeding.

## The case for keeping doctors

The strongest argument against the medical societies comes from someone who opposes the executions themselves. Austin Sarat’s study of American executions from 1890 to 2010 found that 7.2 percent of lethal injections were botched, against 3.15 percent for all methods. [Writing in Salon](https://www.salon.com/2026/10/03/christa-pikes-botched-execution-was-not-an-isolated-incident/) on Oct. 3, he said that if states are going to kill prisoners, they should be required to have competent medical professionals on hand. “Maybe the problem is not with Tennessee law but instead with the ethical standards,” he wrote, meaning the ones that keep reputable doctors out.

> Doctors, good doctors, are needed to help make sure that the process goes as smoothly as possible
>
> — Austin Sarat, scholar of capital punishment, in Salon, [salon.com](https://www.salon.com/2026/10/03/christa-pikes-botched-execution-was-not-an-isolated-incident/)

Prisoners’ lawyers make a version of the same argument in court. The federal lawsuit filed within hours of the Carruthers attempt asked that any future IV attempt be made by someone qualified, licensed and “presently authorized” by a medical facility to place a central line. Their objection was never that a doctor was present. It was that this doctor was out of practice.

The letter that [more than 40 Tennessee doctors and nurses](https://tennesseelookout.com/2026/07/29/tennessee-medical-professionals-call-for-pause-on-executions/) sent Mr. Lee in July asked for the opposite. The Guardian put the number of signers at 50. The letter called for a pause in executions and a new protocol with health workers left out, and it said those who take part are “those willing to set aside their professional ethics.” It called the Carruthers attempt “the predictable result of working with such unscrupulous actors.” Dr. Matthew Wynia, who directs the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado’s medical school, told NPR that only a few countries, which he called authoritarian states, still put doctors in execution chambers, and he traced the American exception to a profession that never fully refused.

> Medical involvement in executions ends up happening because medicine is unable to say, ‘No, we don’t do that.’
>
> — Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the University of Colorado’s Center for Bioethics and Humanities, [kffhealthnews.org](https://kffhealthnews.org/health-industry/death-penalty-lethal-injection-execution-doctors-tennessee-carruthers-christa-pike/)

The Tennessee record supports half of Mr. Sarat’s case. A ban leaves the work to whoever is willing, and that is what happened: the state’s physician was a part-time contractor without hospital privileges who had not placed a central line since about 2013, and Ed Stanton’s 2022 review for the state [found](https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/a2/d3/b79f5e7e497e83cb01d884c62bf7/tn-lethal-injection-protocol-investigation-report-and-findings-12-13-22.pdf) that its executioner had no formal health care training. His remedy is weaker. It assumes a supply of good doctors that the history doesn’t show. When California required two anesthesiologists in 2006, they handed the warden a note refusing to take part in the early morning hours. Licensing boards and specialty boards have spent two decades making that refusal the norm, and the record offers no sign that a practicing specialist would take the job for $3,000.

The doctors’ remedy has its own gap. Ms. Lain told CNN that in many states non-medical prison guards already push the syringes from a neighboring room through about seven feet of tubing, and CNN reported that the botch rate for lethal injection has risen to nearly 8 percent since 2010. Since 2020, six states have had botched lethal injections out of 17 that carried out executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Removing the doctor ends the ethical conflict. Nothing in that record shows it would make the procedure work.

![A vintage engraving shows a large broken green gear in a dark workshop, with fragments scattered on the floor and a white coat draped over a chair.](https://rews.cc/img/7440c2807b0298c52bc21a32eaab0ee73da2b181.webp)

## What comes next

Mr. Lee has stopped executions through the end of the year, which cancels Gary Wayne Sutton’s Dec. 3 date and covers the rest of his final term. Frank Strada, the corrections commissioner, is [stepping down](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tennessee-state-corrections-chief-resigns-failed-execution-christa-pike) at the end of October. “I continue to believe the Department carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol,” he said. The attorney general’s office has hired Mr. Stanton again, this time to determine whether the protocol was followed on Sept. 30. No deadline has been announced. The current protocol runs 44 pages, down from 106, and Ms. Pike’s lawyers had warned months earlier that it was “devoid of details.”

On Oct. 7, Chancellor I’Ashea L. Myles ordered the state to preserve everything from the Pike attempt. “Anything that was in the room needs to be preserved, that includes waste,” she said. A state lawyer said the Tennessee Supreme Court will decide whether and when to set a new date for Ms. Pike. Ms. Hervey’s complaint against Dr. Fowler remains before the Health Department, which keeps investigative files confidential until charges are filed.

The politics run toward other methods. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee in the Nov. 3 governor’s race, wants to bring back the electric chair, and House Speaker Cameron Sexton wants to add potassium chloride to the drug protocol, [the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported](https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/oct/05/tennessee-lawmakers-mull-execution-changes-amid/). State Representative Jody Barrett, a Dickson Republican, wants public hearings when the legislature returns in January. “I don’t think that an independent review that is done internally by the governor’s office or the administration is sufficient or is going to be sufficient,” he [told WATE](https://www.wate.com/news/tennessee/tennessee-lawmaker-calls-for-public-hearing-after-christa-pike-survives-execution-attempt/). None of those proposals, as reported, says who would stand at the gurney. Tennessee already faces that question in [other states’ records](https://rews.cc/a/one-drug-two-gurneys-texas-kills-where-tennessee-failed-dc10b3).

Ms. DeLiberato, who watched the May attempt from a few feet away, rejects the premise that a doctor’s presence makes an execution humane.

> They want to make this a medical procedure, but it’s not. It’s premeditated murder. There’s really no way to kill a person humanely, with or without a doctor. What I witnessed was torture.
>
> — Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel, A.C.L.U. capital punishment project, [theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/08/tennessee-doctor-executions-death-penalty)

Mr. Carruthers’ one-year reprieve expires in May 2027.

## See also

- [AMA to Supreme Court: Doctor participation in executions unethical](https://www.ama-assn.org/health-care-advocacy/judicial-advocacy/ama-supreme-court-doctor-participation-executions-unethical) — ama-assn.org · The medical association's 2018 brief arguing its ban before the justices
- [Should Physicians Participate in State-Ordered Executions?](https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/should-physicians-participate-state-ordered-executions/2013-03) — journalofethics.ama-assn.org · AMA Journal of Ethics case discussion setting out both sides
- [Secrets of the Killing State, Corinna Barrett Lain](https://nyupress.org/9781479832965/secrets-of-the-killing-state/) — nyupress.org · Publisher's page for the 2025 history of lethal injection
- [The Court and the Killing State, Michigan Law Review](https://michiganlawreview.org/journal/the-court-and-the-killing-state/) — michiganlawreview.org · A review on how the Supreme Court's method-of-execution doctrine sidesteps the facts
- [Ethical Prohibition Against Physician Participation in Capital Punishment](https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196%2811%2961125-7/fulltext) — mayoclinicproceedings.org · Mayo Clinic Proceedings article on the case for the ban
- [Ethics debate puts N.C. executions on hold](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna17244327) — nbcnews.com · How a medical board policy stopped executions in North Carolina in 2007
- [Judge orders that Christa Pike execution evidence be preserved](https://www.npr.org/2026/10/07/nx-s1-5993628/judge-orders-that-christa-pike-execution-evidence-be-preserved) — npr.org · NPR on the Oct. 7 court order covering records from the Pike attempt
- [Christa Pike coverage, Death Penalty Information Center](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/tag/christa-pike) — deathpenaltyinfo.org · Running file of filings and developments in the Pike case