Tennessee officials were unable to complete the execution of Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday night after her lethal injection was delayed for hours as courts considered a last-minute appeal. Pike, sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in at least 200 years.

Gov. Bill Lee said in a statement that he has ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred,” halting scheduled executions for the remainder of this year.

“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” he said.

Earlier Wednesday night, reporters were ushered into the chamber to witness Pike’s scheduled execution after a divided U.S. Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling that had halted the lethal injection one hour before it was originally set to take place.

As the execution began, officials appeared to give Pike two doses of pentobarbital.

At 7:46 p.m. prison officials closed the curtain to the media room. They raised the curtain three minutes later. Pike could be heard loudly snoring, and the curtain was closed again at 8:06 p.m.

Pike continued to be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at about 8:53 p.m. Pike’s spiritual advisers were also seen being ushered in and out of the room, according to reporters. Around that time, officials announced that media witnesses would be escorted from the area.

The Tennessee Department of Correction released a statement Wednesday night, saying it “followed every step” of the execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.

“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening,” the department said.

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

As reporters who witnessed the execution gave their accounts of the execution at a press conference, one common observation emerged: Pike appeared to be “very clearly alive” when they were escorted from the chamber.

During the news conference, an ambulance was seen leaving the facility.

“I cannot emphasize enough how much of whatever just happened happened behind a closed curtain,” Nashville Banner reporter Stephan Hale said.

Lawyers for Pike filed an emergency motion late Wednesday with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and that continuing it would violate her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment. They also filed motions in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and district court.

The motion also asserted that the Department of Correction should begin lifesaving measures: “Failure to provide such care constitutes deliberate indifference to legitimate, serious medical needs.”

Pike’s lawyers confirmed early Thursday morning that all motions had been denied and considered moot because Pike was transported to a nearby hospital, where she is receiving medical treatment. Her legal team had not been informed of her condition.

“Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” Pike’s lawyers said in a statement. “We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care was available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.

Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating in 1995 of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. The case garnered widespread attention in part because a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.

It was the second time this year that Tennessee has been unable to carry out an execution: In May, state officials called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing three people in 1994, after executioners tried and failed for over an hour to place an IV to administer pentobarbital.

Elizabeth Maline contributed to this report.

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