Tennessee Supreme Court sets 2026 execution dates for Christa Pike, three others

This story has been updated with information about a fourth execution date set by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has set execution dates for four people: Tony Carruthers, Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines, Christa Pike and Gary Wayne Sutton. Pike is the only woman on Tennessee's death row.

The court set the execution dates in orders published Sept. 30. The execution dates are as follows:

• Tony Carruthers: May 21, 2026
• Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines: Aug. 13, 2026
• Christa Pike: Sept. 30, 2026
• Gary Wayne Sutton: Dec. 3, 2026

Carruthers, 58, was sentenced to death in connection with a 1994 shooting and burying alive of three people in a Memphis cemetery. Prosecutors say along with accomplice James Montgomery, Carruthers kidnapped Marcellos Anderson, his mother, Delois Anderson, and one of Anderson's associates, Frederick Tucker. The two male victims were shot, and then all three victims were buried alive in a pit below a casket in Memphis' Rose Hill Cemetery.

Carruthers' case is unusual as he represented himself at trial. He had six attorneys represent him before the judge refused to provide another attorney to represent him.

Hines, 65, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of raping, robbing and killing Katherine Jean Jenkins, a motel maid Kingston Springs, in 1985.

Pike, 49, was sentenced to death for the brutal slaying of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow teenager at a Knoxville career training program. Prosecutors said two other young people participated in the 1995 killing, but Pike was the only one sentenced to death. She was 18 at the time and the last woman sentenced to death in Tennessee.

If the state moves forward with Pike's capital punishment, she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Sutton, 60, was sentenced to death in connection with the 1992 murders of Tommy Griffin and his sister Connie Branam in East Tennessee's Blount County. Prosecutors said Sutton carried out the killings with his uncle James Dellinger, and Dellinger was also convicted and sentenced to death. He died of natural causes on death row in 2023.

Sutton has had an execution date before. Before Gov. Bill Lee put capital punishment on pause in Tennessee in 2022, Sutton and four others were scheduled to die. When the first round of execution dates were set earlier this year, Sutton was the only of those five who was not given a new execution date.

Challenges to their sentences

All four have made challenges to their death sentences for different reasons.

Carruthers has argued against the proof of his guilt, but his attorneys, including Kelley Henry from the Federal Public Defender's office, say he is also severely mentally ill and was incompetent to represent himself. He argues he is incompetent to be executed and has requested a competency hearing in Shelby County.

Hines' case has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Hines was briefly released from death row after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2020 he was entitled to a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to investigate a crucial witness. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision in an 8-1 ruling, finding the circuit court "disregarded the overwhelming evidence of guilt."

Sutton and his numerous supporters, organized as Justice for Gary Wayne Sutton, say he is innocent of the murders of Branam and Griffin, who they say was a good friend of his. Sutton's friend Carolyn Miller told The Tennessean Sutton was with her at the time of the killings. Sutton's attorney Randy Spivey also says Sutton is intellectually disabled.

Pike admits to Slemmer's killing but has other arguments against her death sentence. Her attorneys sought to reopen her case in 2023, arguing that a recent Tennessee Supreme Court decision showed that age should be considered in sentencing, saying, "there is no hard line of maturity or difference between the brain development of a 17-year-old and 18-year-old." Pike would be the first person put to death in Tennessee for a crime committed at age 18 since the death penalty was reinstated nationwide in 1976.

Her attorneys also say Pike was severely mentally ill at the time of the crime and had a horrific childhood and adolescence.

Attorneys react

Spivey, Sutton's attorney, said in a statement the only scientific evidence in the case is from disgraced state medical examiner Charles Harlan and that there was no motive for Sutton to kill Griffin, his friend.

"The case against Gary has been riddled with problems since the beginning and Gary has always maintained his innocence," Spivey said. "Gary’s family, friends, and attorneys are working tirelessly to ensure that execution is not his fate."

Henry, who represents Carruthers, said she is still investigating what happened in the state's last execution, where Byron Black showed visible signs of pain as the lethal injection drugs flowed through him.

“Our public records requests have gone unanswered and important documents are still shrouded in secrecy," Henry said. "We will continue to fight to bring the truth of what happened to light before these executions move forward to protect our clients from being tortured the way Byron was.” 

Pike's attorneys Kelly Gleason, Randy Spivey, Stephen Ferrell and Molly Kincaid said in a statement that they are disappointed and believe Pike's death sentence should be commuted because of her youth and severe mental illness.

"Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect. With time and treatment for bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders, which were not diagnosed until years later, Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime," the statement reads.

State resumed executions earlier this year

Tennessee has killed two people this year after Lee called off executions in 2022. The Tennessee Department of Correction developed a new lethal injection protocol after it was revealed that corrections employees failed to comply with the previous protocol.

The state of Tennessee executed Byron Lewis Black, 69, by lethal injection Aug. 5 for the 1989 South Nashville killings of his ex-girlfriend Angela Clay and her two daughters Latoya, 9, and Lakeisha, 6. On May 22, the state executed Oscar Franklin Smith, 75, for the murders of his estranged wife Judith Robirds Smith and her two teenage sons, Chad Burnett and Jason Burnett, in Nashville.

The Tennessee Supreme Court set Harold Wayne Nichols' execution date for Dec. 11. Donald Ray Middlebrooks' Sept. 24 execution date was called off while his ongoing legal challenge proceeds in federal court.

Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas at [email protected].