Just The Gist of… Christa Pike's failed execution

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If you’ve seen Christa Pike’s name in the headlines this week next to the words “botched execution” and have no idea what actually happened, this is the episode for you. Last week, on the 30th of September 2026, Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike, who had spent 30 years as the only woman on the state’s death row for a murder she committed at 18. The first lethal dose of pentobarbital didn’t kill her. Neither did the second. After two hours behind a closed curtain she left the death chamber in an ambulance, and five days later she woke up in hospital and asked where she was. Her lawyers say she’s the only person known to have survived a completed execution in US history, and nobody,…