Reporter who covered nearly 500 executions says he's never seen an inmate survive

Tennessee halts executions after Pike survives two pentobarbital doses

BBC News reported that Michael Graczyk has watched nearly 500 people die by lethal injection in Texas during a 46-year reporting career with the Associated Press. Graczyk, 76, told the BBC he continues to cover executions on a freelance basis for the AP after his 2018 retirement. He said he remembers two instances in which needles popped out of veins before being reinserted during successful executions but that he has never seen an inmate survive.

That is what happened Wednesday night in Tennessee, when 50-year-old Christa Pike remained breathing and audibly snoring after two separate doses of pentobarbital, the barbiturate used in the state’s lethal-injection protocol, according to the BBC.

“It seems to me it was just a matter of time,” Graczyk told BBC News.

Tennessee’s execution protocol calls for a secondary set of pentobarbital-filled syringes in case the condemned person does not die after the first set, according to the Associated Press, as the BBC reported. The protocol does not spell out what happens if the subject remains alive after the second set. Governor Bill Lee halted all state executions after Wednesday night’s failure and ordered an independent review into procedures. The BBC reported that botched executions have come under scrutiny over the past decade as a shortage of the drugs used has led some states to change the formula, procure drugs from more questionable sources, or reintroduce death by firing squad as an alternative.

Lethal injection is the most frequently used form of capital punishment in the 27 US states where the penalty is legal. The Death Penalty Information Center, a think tank that does not take a position on the death penalty, defines a botched execution as one with “unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary agony for the prisoner or that reflect gross incompetence of the executioner,” the BBC reported. The organization has compiled a list of 64 botched executions in the United States since 1982, 51 of them lethal injections. In at least seven of those cases, executions were halted because the IV line could not be set.

Graczyk, who told the BBC he was not entirely surprised to hear of the Tennessee anomaly, considers his prolific attendance at executions an important part of the job. “There is no [greater] authority, power, or whatever you want to call it, that state or federal government has over us than the power to take our life,” he said. Of Texas specifically, Graczyk told the BBC: “That has never happened here.” Graczyk was referring to a lethal injection failing after the drug was administered; he said no inmate in Texas has survived an execution in his time covering them.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, there have been 1,683 executions in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, as cited by the BBC. Texas has carried out by far the most of any state, with 602 executions. In 1982, Texas became the first state to use lethal injection.

Graczyk articulated why he considers his attendance important, the BBC reported. “I always thought it was important for someone who has no stake in the outcome of a case to be there and to see the law being carried out and to make certain that it is done properly,” he said. “That someone is there to see it and tell others: Here’s what I saw. Here’s what happened.”

He also described a procedural difference between Texas and Tennessee, the BBC reported. Texas does not allow observers in the execution chamber while the IV line is being inserted. “So when we get into the chamber, the inmate’s already hooked up,” Graczyk said. In a lethal injection, the line would typically be inserted in the crook of the arm; if that does not work, technicians may use the top of the hand, the leg, the neck, or other sites, the BBC reported. During successful executions, Graczyk told the BBC, inmates become “visibly unconscious after just a few seconds” and are usually pronounced dead 20 to 40 minutes after the fatal dose is administered.

Pike is hospitalized and receiving “life-saving care,” according to her attorney, the BBC reported. She was convicted of the torture and killing of Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old originally from Florida who loved to roller skate, smile and help others, according to descriptions given by her friends and family, the BBC reported. Pike was 18 at the time of the crime. Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, met Slemmer at a job training camp. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, was present in Tennessee on Wednesday for the execution attempt and told NBC News afterward that it “was a mess,” the BBC reported.

Graczyk, who told the BBC he feels a particular responsibility to remember victims in his coverage, expressed frustration that the focus on Pike had displaced the memory of those she killed. “I feel bad for the victims in the case,” he said. “They are the forgotten folks. They always have been.” He added: “Today, all the emphasis is on the inmate in Tennessee. No tears are being shed, other than the victim’s immediate family, for the victim … and I understand that’s the business we’re in, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Graczyk also recalled to the BBC the 1998 execution of Jonathan Nobles in Texas, who had been sentenced for the 1986 stabbing murders of two Austin women, Kelley Fraquhar and Mitzi Johnson-Nalley. Nobles sang “Silent Night” as his last words. According to Graczyk, Nobles reached the line “Round yon virgin” in the carol before falling silent as the drug took effect, Graczyk told the BBC.

The scene, Graczyk said, has stayed with him for nearly 30 years. “To this day, when I’m in church on Christmas, and the choir is singing Silent Night, and all the congregation is joining in Silent Night and they’re all, you know, in the spirit of the season and the joy of the season, and I’m thinking of this execution, I’m sure I’m the only one in that congregation that is having that kind of recollection,” he told the BBC.

When people hear about his career covering executions, Graczyk told the BBC, they are usually curious. “Most people don’t get to watch someone die,” he said. But when people ask him what he has witnessed, he tells them “it’s not the only thing I did or do or have done,” the BBC reported.