Tennessee’s prison chief has resigned days after the state’s botched attempt to execute convicted murderer Christa Pike left her gravely ill. Governor Bill Lee announced on Saturday that Frank Strada had resigned as commissioner of the Department of Correction and would step down this month. Strada said stepping aside was ‘in the best interest of Tennesseans’ as an independent review moves forward. The execution attempt took place on September 30 at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Pike, 50, survived two rounds of the lethal drug pentobarbital and was left unconscious and on a ventilator. Her lawyers have accused prison officials of ignoring warnings from Pike’s doctors that her small veins and a blood disorder called thrombocytosis would make placing intravenous lines very difficult. It was the state’s second failed execution this year, the first coming in May. Lee has halted all executions in Tennessee for the rest of 2026 and ordered an independent review led by former US Attorney Ed Stanton. Pike was convicted three decades ago of the 1995 torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, when Pike was 18. She became one of the youngest women sent to death row.