Tennessee has postponed the scheduled Dec. 3 execution of Gary Wayne Sutton, a convicted double murderer, after Gov. Bill Lee suspended all executions in the state for the remainder of the year following a botched lethal injection attempt on death row inmate Christa Pike.
Sutton’s execution was the only one scheduled on the state’s calendar before Lee’s statewide halt. His uncle and co-defendant, James Dellinger, died of natural causes on death row in 2023.
Sutton, who has maintained his innocence throughout, was convicted in separate trials for the murders of Tommy Griffin and his sister, Connie Branam, who were killed on Feb. 21 and 22, 1992, in Tennessee.
The Griffin and Branam Killings
According to court records reviewed by Fox News Digital, Sutton had beaten up Griffin’s brother months before the killings. On Feb. 21, 1992, Sutton went drinking with Dellinger and Griffin at a bar called Howie’s Hideaway. After leaving, the three got into a fight, and Sutton and Dellinger left Griffin on the roadside.
A passing driver flagged down a police officer after encountering Griffin. The responding officer described Griffin as shirtless, with scrapes and scratches on his upper body and a cut behind his ear, and “on the verge of tears.” Griffin told the officer he had gotten into “an argument with some friends, who were not really his friends,” but declined to elaborate. He was arrested for public intoxication.
Sutton and Dellinger arrived at the police station around 8:30 p.m. to bail Griffin out and were told to return later. They came back around 11:30 p.m. with a flannel shirt for him, court documents show.
About a half hour after Griffin’s release, witnesses in the area reported hearing three gunshots. Griffin’s body was later found; he had suffered a shotgun blast to the head.
The following day, Griffin’s sister, Connie Branam, went to the same bar with Sutton and Dellinger, telling a server she was looking for her brother. Her body was later discovered in her burned car. The damage from the fire was severe enough that a forensic pathologist could not determine whether she had been alive when the fire started. Detectives recovered a .303 cartridge matching a rifle found at Dellinger’s home.
Supporters of Sutton have argued the case against him relied on circumstantial evidence, and it remains unclear who shot Griffin or exactly how Branam died.
A Second Botched Execution This Year
The statewide pause follows Tennessee’s failed attempt last week to execute Christa Pike, who was convicted in the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Two doses of lethal injection drugs failed to kill Pike, who is now hospitalized in critical condition at an undisclosed facility. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks capital punishment nationwide, Pike is the first person known to have survived administration of lethal injection drugs.
It is the second botched execution in Tennessee this year. In May, executioners were unable to find a suitable vein for condemned inmate Tony Carruthers, forcing cancellation of his scheduled execution. Gov. Lee has said Carruthers will not face a rescheduled execution for at least a year.
The Death Penalty Information Center notes a prior case of a surviving inmate: in 2014, Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett initially survived a lethal injection attempt but died of a heart attack while still in the execution chamber.
What happens next for Pike, and for Sutton’s rescheduled execution date, remains unclear.
