Prison chief to resign as probe launched into Christa Pike botched execution scandal

Murderer: Tennessee Department of Correction released image of Christa Pike before her failed execution (Getty)

Tennessee’s head of prisons is to resign over the failed execution of Christa Pike.

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada said in a statement to CBS that he is to stand down for ‘in the best interests’ after the move was announced by Governor Bill Lee.

An investigation into how Pike, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer, survived two lethal injections.

She is now in critical condition at a Tennessee hospital. Strada called the investigation into the failed procedure ‘entirely appropriate and necessary’.

On Wednesday, two doses of lethal injection pento...