Tennessee Execution Pause Spares Death Row Inmate Gary Wayne Sutton After Christa Pike Lethal Injection Failure

A botched lethal injection in Tennessee has delayed the execution of a second death row inmate, after state officials moved to pause all remaining executions scheduled for the rest of 2026.

Gary Wayne Sutton, who was set to be put to death on Dec. 3, will not face execution on that date after Gov. Bill Lee halted upcoming executions following the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike last week. Pike did not die after being administered two rounds of lethal drugs, prompting the governor’s office to pause the only other execution left on the calendar before year’s end — Sutton’s.

Sutton has been on death row since he was convicted in two separate trials of the February 1992 murders of siblings Tommy Griffin and Connie Branam.

According to court records obtained by Fox News, Sutton, his uncle James Dellinger, and Griffin spent the night of Feb. 21, 1992, drinking together. The night turned violent, and Griffin ended up shirtless and scratched on the side of a road, where police picked him up and booked him on a public intoxication charge.

Sutton and Dellinger later bailed Griffin out of jail. Roughly 30 minutes afterward, witnesses reported hearing three gunshots near the spot where Griffin was later found dead from a shotgun blast to the head, the records show.

The next day, Branam went looking for her brother, accompanied by Sutton and Dellinger, at the bar the men had been drinking at the night before, according to prosecutors. Her badly burned body was later discovered inside a scorched car.

Dellinger, who was tried as Sutton’s co-defendant, was also sentenced to death but died of natural causes while still on death row, before the state could carry out his execution.

Sutton has maintained his innocence. He does not currently have a new execution date, and it remains unclear when Tennessee will resume carrying out death sentences.