Today in Ohio - Oct. 2, 2026 Ohio's parallel to Tennessee's botched execution

The botched execution of Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike bears some similarities to one of Ohio's most notorious execution failures, the 2009 attempt to put Romell Broom to death.

In that case, a 14-year-old named Trina Middleton was kidnapped and killed in September 1984.

She was walking home from a high school football game.

The family never got justice.

What happened now in Tennessee? Will there be similarities, Leila?

Well, yeah, I, I agree.

The Romell Broom case really shows just how long a failed execution can leave a family's, or a victim's family waiting for a sentence that, that was never ultimately carried out.

Ohio tried to execute Broom in 2009, uh, for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 14-year-old Trina.

Executioners had spent about two hours trying to establish an IV.

They stuck him 18 different times before finally giving up.

O- Ohio eventually won the legal right to try again, but Broom never made it back to the execution chamber because, uh, his next exe- execution was delayed because the state couldn't get the drugs.

We were...

We started to enter that cycle where those drugs never again became available to Ohio, and he ended up dying of COVID in prison in 2020.

And Trina's mother, Bessie Middleton, is still living with that.

She had traveled to the prison expecting to see the sentence carried out, only to get h- to go home after it failed.

And more than 40 years after her daughter was killed, she still thinks about her every single day.

And now in Tennessee, um, w- they could be headed into their own long period of uncertainty with Christa Pike.

But medically, this case is actually more alarming than Broom's.

Broom never received the le- the lethal drugs, but Pike did.

Tennessee gave her both the initial and the backup doses of pentobarbital, 2.5 grams altogether, which I... w- is apparently is four times the dosage that you would give someone to put them into a medically induced coma, and she still survived that.

Her attorney says her arm turned purple and there was blistering and burning around the injection site, suggesting that the drug may have gone into her tissue rather than her bloodstream.

Pike was eventually rushed to a hospital where she's now reportedly in critical condition receiving life-saving care, ironically, and nobody knows yet what the lasting damage might be.

A- an Ohio surgeon who examined Broom after his failed execution says that Pike could potentially have suffered brain injury if her breathing became shallow enough to deprive her brain of oxygen, al- although we don't know whether that happened, of course.

So, so as for whether Tennessee simply tries again, that's, that's a open question at this point.

Governor Bill Lee has called what happened deeply disturbing.

The botched execution of Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike bears some similarities to one of Ohio's most notorious execution failures, the 2009 attempt to put Romell Broom to death.

In that case, a 14-year-old named Trina Middleton was kidnapped and killed in September 1984.

She was walking home from a high school football game.

The family never got justice.

What happened now in Tennessee? Will there be similarities, Leila?

Well, yeah, I, I agree.

The Romell Broom case really shows just how long a failed execution can leave a family's, or a victim's family waiting for a sentence that, that was never ultimately carried out.

Ohio tried to execute Broom in 2009, uh, for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 14-year-old Trina.

Executioners had spent about two hours trying to establish an IV.

They stuck him 18 different times before finally giving up.

O- Ohio eventually won the legal right to try again, but Broom never made it back to the execution chamber because, uh, his next exe- execution was delayed because the state couldn't get the drugs.

We were...

We started to enter that cycle where those drugs never again became available to Ohio, and he ended up dying of COVID in prison in 2020.

And Trina's mother, Bessie Middleton, is still living with that.

She had traveled to the prison expecting to see the sentence carried out, only to get h- to go home after it failed.

And more than 40 years after her daughter was killed, she still thinks about her every single day.

And now in Tennessee, um, w- they could be headed into their own long period of uncertainty with Christa Pike.

But medically, this case is actually more alarming than Broom's.

Broom never received the le- the lethal drugs, but Pike did.

Tennessee gave her both the initial and the backup doses of pentobarbital, 2.5 grams altogether, which I... w- is apparently is four times the dosage that you would give someone to put them into a medically induced coma, and she still survived that.

Her attorney says her arm turned purple and there was blistering and burning around the injection site, suggesting that the drug may have gone into her tissue rather than her bloodstream.

Pike was eventually rushed to a hospital where she's now reportedly in critical condition receiving life-saving care, ironically, and nobody knows yet what the lasting damage might be.

A- an Ohio surgeon who examined Broom after his failed execution says that Pike could potentially have suffered brain injury if her breathing became shallow enough to deprive her brain of oxygen, al- although we don't know whether that happened, of course.

So, so as for whether Tennessee simply tries again, that's, that's a open question at this point.

Governor Bill Lee has called what happened deeply disturbing.